• French Quarter

  $$$★★★★

  The oldest neighborhood, more residential than its reputation suggests if you know where to walk.

• Bywater & Marigny

  $$★★★★

  The downriver neighborhoods where the city's music, food, and design scenes have settled.

• Garden District

  $$$★★★★

  The 19th-century American sector where the cotton money built the houses, and the houses are still there.

• Uptown

  $$★★★★

  Everything upriver of the Garden District — the residential city where the streetcar runs and the trees do most of the work.

• Tremé

  $$★★★★

  The neighborhood where Black New Orleans history, music, and civic memory remain impossible to separate.

• Mid-City & Bayou St. John

  $$★★★★

  Streetcars, po-boys, City Park, and the bayou-side version of a New Orleans afternoon.

• Warehouse District & CBD

  $$$★★★★

  The downtown zone where museums, serious restaurants, hotels, and old commercial buildings carry the day.