Ask the team · Bywater, New Orleans
The Journal · City guide · The neighborhood
Stay in the Bywater. Visit the French Quarter.
Guests sometimes ask if they should have stayed in the French Quarter instead. Our answer: we would pick the Bywater over the Quarter pretty much every day of the week. Here is the reasoning.
The French Quarter
The Quarter is great. It is three hundred years old and there is nothing else like it in the country: Jackson Square, the galleries on Royal Street, whole blocks of Creole and Spanish architecture. It is also extremely touristy: most of the restaurants and bars there are built for people passing through once, and priced accordingly. It is not where we would want to wake up for four days.
The Bywater
The Bywater is a local neighborhood that is just as historic. The villas sit a short walk from blocks of Creole cottages and shotgun houses from the 1800s. The restaurants and bars are run for the people who live here, and they are good. You get the historic architecture without the tourism economy wrapped around it.
The geography
One thing worth knowing about New Orleans: the historic neighborhoods sit along the Mississippi, because the riverbank is the city's high ground. That strip runs from the Bywater through the Marigny into the French Quarter. Same high ground, same era of housing.
Nearby
Bacchanal 14 min walk
Our go-to for a first night: the backyard wine yard, live music every single night.
Vaughan's Lounge 13 min walk
Thursday-night brass, an institution.
BJ's Lounge 11 min walk
Dive-bar perfection, cash only.
The Country Club 26 min walk
Brunch, a bar, and a pool.
Crescent Park 20 min walk
River path with a skyline view; it connects all the way to the French Quarter.
Getting around
The ten minutes
The French Quarter is ten minutes by car from the villas; Frenchmen Street is eight. Rideshares show up in a few minutes. If you would rather walk, Crescent Park runs along the river the whole way.
We count the distance as a benefit. You see the Quarter when you want it, and you sleep on a quiet block in a better neighborhood. That is the whole argument.
The neighborhood, mapped.
