River Road National Scenic Byway Louisiana

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. New Orleans

   New Orleans exists because of a bend. The French founded the city in 1718 on a crescent of high ground in the Mississippi River, a spot that gave them a portage to Lake Pontchartrain and control of the great river's mouth, and the bend still shapes everything, from street names to the way people give directions by river and lake rather than by compass. The city is mostly below sea level, kept dry by levees and pumps, and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the whole country learned how fragile that arrangement can be. People here talk about it plainly and carry on.

   Read the complete New Orleans write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   New Orleans is where the day begins. Next is Destrehan.

2. 2. Destrehan

   Driving upriver from New Orleans, Destrehan is the first place where the old Mississippi plantation country comes into view, and it does so in a very ordinary way: between a refinery, a levee and a row of suburban houses. Then you see the long avenue of oaks, the white gallery and the deep roof of Destrehan Plantation, a house begun in the 1780s that is among the oldest surviving plantation homes in the lower Mississippi valley. It has been restored, and visitors can tour the house and its grounds.

   Read the complete Destrehan write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Destrehan comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vacherie.

3. 3. Vacherie

   Vacherie is a small community on the west bank of the Mississippi, and it is a village of cows and plantations, as the name suggests: vacherie is the old French word for a cattle farm. This reach of the river is where Louisiana's sugar-planting history survives in its most concentrated form, and within a few kilometres you can visit three large plantations that each tell a different part of the story.

   Read the complete Vacherie write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach Vacherie. Next is Donaldsonville.

4. 4. Donaldsonville

   Donaldsonville sits where Bayou Lafourche meets the Mississippi, and that confluence has shaped its fortunes ever since the French and Spanish colonial period. It is one of the oldest towns on the river, laid out in the early nineteenth century by a man named Donaldson, and for a short time, in 1830 and 1831, it served as the capital of Louisiana. Today it is a quiet town of about eight thousand people with a historic district of wooden and brick buildings, iron balconies and live oaks, and a slightly faded, thoughtful atmosphere.

   Read the complete Donaldsonville write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Donaldsonville, late in the day. Next is Baton Rouge.

5. 5. Baton Rouge

   Baton Rouge sits on the first high bluff upriver from the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi bends around it, huge, brown and slow. French explorers noted a red post on the bank marking the boundary between tribal hunting grounds and called the place by that name, red stick, and the city has kept it ever since. Today it is the state capital of Louisiana, a city of over two hundred thousand, with a big university, the oil and chemical industry, and a food culture that rivals New Orleans without the tourist crowds.

   Read the complete Baton Rouge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Baton Rouge. That is the ride.