Louisiana

As much as we love the South's quintessential clapboard churches and stately mansions, our appreciation of Southern architecture extends beyond the classics. We‘ve combed the region for noteworthy structures, from historical masterpieces like Thomas Jefferson‘s Palladian Monticello to modern marvels like the breezy, zero-energy McDonald‘s Florida flagship (yes, McDonald’s).

Jazz musician Robin Barnes shares her ideal 24 hours in her hometown.

A Cajun colloquialism, “T” in front of a name means petite or small. For the T’Spoon cocktail at Spoonbill Watering Hole & Restaurant in Lafayette, Louisiana, it may be a small, boozy nod to the restaurant’s brashy-sweet vibe—but it sure has big taste.

When I was a kid, one of the few salves for the end of the summer and the beginning of another long school year was the St. Tammany Parish Fair in Covington, Louisiana. There was always that sense of anticipation and excitement as the weather cooled and eased into fall, the days growing shorter, a feeling that things were changing.

Born in Acadiana (Louisiana’s historically French region) in the sixties, a plate lunch is a working person’s meal. Portions are large so as to keep hunger at bay until nightfall.

Their primary job is to serve the most central of daily meals: lunch. They are early risers, okra choppers, roux stirrers, crowd herders. They are keepers of their family’s long-held recipes. They bear up under pressure. They are survivors.

Truman Capote was not born inside New Orleans’s Hotel Monteleone. But when he drank there with friends, which was often, he liked to claim he was.

Since Southbound debuted in 2013, our staff and contributors have logged thousands of miles, consumed millions of calories, and taken countless notes and photos to showcase the very best destinations around the region. Although every place we’ve covered is special, some left a particularly powerful impression. Here, we give you the best of the very best, our favorite spots in the South.

You feel the life there. It touches all your senses. Every little bit of land is living; it’s got movement. The sounds you hear are sounds you don’t hear anywhere else on the planet.

Though he has lived in sizable metropoles including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Toronto (where he’s filming his current sci-fi horror series V Wars), nothing comes close to the allure of the tiny towns in southeastern Louisiana that provided the backdrop for his formative years.