| Kicking It Up in Cajun Country Lafayette to New Iberia, Louisiana The language, the accent, the music, the food - it's all a unique cultural experience on this Louisiana Cajun Country road trip. Begin your journey in Lafayette, Louisiana, and visit Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, where the Acadian Cultural Center tells the story of how the Acadian people settled in Louisiana's bayou country. Travel northeast up LA 94 to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, to Mulate's for Cajun food and live Cajun and Zydeco music and dancing. Head south through bayou and swamp country on LA 31 to New Iberia, Louisiana, and tour tranquil Rip Van Winkle Gardens. Farther south at Avery Island's Jungle Gardens, off LA 329 on Avery Island, take a plant tour of the Tabasco sauce maker. Avery Island is a rustic spot that's great for nature lovers. For nighttime relaxation, head back north on LA 329 and stay in the cottages at Shadows On-The-Teche, an 1834 sugar plantation home. Use our route planner to find hotels for your next trip. | BEST OF THE ROAD:
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| Acadian Cultural Center 501 Fisher Road Lafayette, LA 70508  |  | Feel the pulse of Cajun Country in Lafayette, a cultural oasis on the bayou where the old fuses with the new. A good place to begin: the Acadian Cultural Center, at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. Watch an outstanding film about the exile of the Acadian people from their native Nova Scotia and how they settled in the bayous and swamps of Louisiana. | | |||||||
| Vermilionville 300 Fisher Rd Lafayette, LA 70508 Call (866) 992-2968 |  | One of Lafayette's two unique attractions taking visitors back to the early days of Cajun and Creole life is Vermilionville, a living history village, featuring costumed interpreters demonstrating cooking, music, and other traditional skills typical of life in Acadia between 1765 and 1890. | | |||||||
| Acadian Village 200 Greenleaf Dr Lafayette, LA 70506 Call (337) 981-2364 | | The Acadian Village takes visitors back in time to typical Acadian life in the 1800s. It contains a folklife museum, homes, and architectural landmarks of 19th-century Acadia. | | |||||||
| Mulate's 325 Mills Avenue Breaux Bridge, LA 70517 | | Cajun and zydeco music reflect the cultures and traditions of the Acadian and Creole people. Cajun music, usually sung in French, tells stories of life on the bayou. Zydeco, a mix of Cajun music and the blues, has roots in the Creoles of African descent. Young and old alike enjoy a fais-do-do, dancing a lively Cajun two-step, or swaying to an accordion waltz. Mulate's features Cajun food and dancing to live bands. | ||||||||
| Cafe Des Amis 140 East Bridge Street Breaux Bridge, LA 70517 | | Zydeco breakfasts rock at Cafe des Amis on Saturday mornings. Traditional Cajun foods are served at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and range from beignets and couche couche to catfish, crawfish pie, and barbecued shrimp. | ||||||||
| Angelle's Whiskey River Landing 1365 Henderson Levee Road Breaux Bridge, LA 70517 | | Head to Angelle's Whiskey River Landing, in Henderson, any Sunday just before sunset, when locals gather for a fais-do-do with toe-tapping Cajun tunes. For an encore of history, get a sense of early Louisiana life on a walking tour of the historic houses in downtown Henderson. | ||||||||
| Rip Van Winkle Gardens 5505 Rip Van Winkle Road New Iberia, LA 70560 | | Take a tranquil escape to Rip Van Winkle Gardens, a 25-acre, semitropical paradise with live oak tree vistas, seasonal explosions of blooms, and drop-dead gorgeous grounds for strolling. | ||||||||
| Tabasco Factory & Country Store Avery Island, LA 70513 Call (337) 373-6129 | | Edmund McIlhenny started growing hot peppers to produce his Tabasco hot pepper sauce on Avery Island in 1868. Though most of the hot peppers are now grown in Central America, the original plants for each year's harvest are still grown on Avery Island, producing seeds that are then sent elsewhere for growing. Once peppers are harvested, they are mixed with Avery Island salt and distilled vinegar before being left in white-oak barrels to age for up to three years. The purity of the crop is so important that the company even puts pepper seeds in a local bank vault each year to guard against potential crop disaster. Guided tours leave from the factory's Visitors Center, and feature a 20-minute video about the Tabasco-making process and hands-on exhibits showing the different stages of sauce production. The Jungle Gardens Tour runs daily 9am-5pm. The nearly 250-acre gardens feature azaleas, camellias and bamboo. You might even spot alligators, nutria, raccoons and black bears that live around the gardens. The Country Store, located just outside the Visitors Center, offers free samples and the chance to purchase different Tabasco products. Open daily 9am to 4pm except major holidays. | ||||||||
| Conrad Rice Mill/Konriko Company Store 307 Ann St New Iberia, LA 70560 Call (337) 364-7242 | | Tour the oldest rice mill in America at Conrad Rice Mill/Konriko Company Store. The store offers one-stop shopping for gourmet rices, sauces, and spices along with Konriko products and locally produced foods.Tour the oldest rice mill in America at Conrad Rice Mill/Konriko Company Store. The store offers one-stop shopping for gourmet rices, sauces, and spices along with Konriko products and locally produced foods. | ||||||||
| Seafood Connection 999 Parkview Drive New Iberia, LA 70563 | | A typical Cajun menu includes crawfish, crawfish etouffee, boudin, cracklin's, gumbo, and jambalaya. Check out the menu at Seafood Connection for these and other Cajun specialties. | ||||||||
| Shadows-on-the-Teche 317 E Main St New Iberia, LA 70560 Call (337) 369-6446 | | Shadows On-the-Teche, one of the most famous antebellum homes in the South, is a stunning 1834 sugar plantation home built by a wealthy planter on the Bayou Teche. | ||||||||
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Kicking It Up in Cajun Country