New Orleans, Louisiana
An airboat is a machine you ride.
A kayak is a way in.
A local guide to paddling the cypress swamps, bayous and backwaters around New Orleans. Where to go, when to go, and which tours deserve your money.
At water level, with no engine, the swamp goes about its business around you. Alligators slide off logs ten feet away. Spoonbills work the shallows. The only sound is your paddle.
The swamps within an hour of New Orleans, Manchac, Honey Island and the Pearl River system, are some of the most accessible wild wetlands in the country. This site covers them the way a guide would brief a friend: real conditions, real seasons, no brochure gloss.
The calm one
Cypress tunnels, ghost towns, and the easiest swamp paddle in Louisiana.
Read the guideThe wild one
River swamp, big gators, and a monster legend of its own.
Read the guideThe city one
A paddle through the middle of the city. No gators, big sunsets.
Read the guideThe far one
Moving water and braided channels for people who want the wildest trip near town.
Read the guideAlligators are the headline, and from March through October you will almost certainly see them. Regulars come back for the rest: roseate spoonbills, barred owls calling at midday, osprey hitting the water, five-hundred-year-old cypress, the occasional otter. Every season runs a different show.
What wildlife to expect
Four operators, compared
Which swamp tour is actually worth it?
Field notes, folklore and hard facts from the water.
Open dates, what the gators are doing, and the odd story from the water. Sent by the crew at New Orleans Kayak Swamp Tours, the guides who run the trips on this site. One click to unsubscribe.
