Driving times to Tabasco Co. and plantations
 

During our visit to NO we would like to visit the Tabasco Co. and a couple of plantations. Can this be done in a day, or is there a swamp tour that we can take near the Tabasco site?
Thanks for your help

It's a good 2 or 3 hours to Avery Island (where Tabasco is) from NOLA...Once you get there, it's a very basic factory tour that shows a film of the interesting parts of the peppers and procedures. You then walk over the bottling plant and are dumped out in a gift shop (Surprise!) There is also some sort of bird zoo or wildlife area that we did not do. I would suggest that you not drive all that way just to do this. I think Tabasco has a company store in New Orleans.


As far as planations, there are some nice ones on the road between Natchez and NOLA

My husband has his heart set on touring the Tabasco plant and I have my heart set on touring plantations, so we are making each other happy. On the map it looks like it is a long ways away from NO, so I'm looking for suggestions on what else there may be to do near Avery Island. I'm wanting to visit Nottoway, Oak Alley and Laura plantations, which I think will take most of a day.

We visited Laura and Oak Alley with Spinato Tours - they picked us up at the hotel at 12:30 and dropped us off around 5. So I would think that driving yourself, you could see the Tabasco plant in the morning and 2 plantations in the afternoon, possibly 3 if you didn't actually take a tour at 1 but juststopped to see the grounds. I think 3 tours in 1 afternoon would be too much. If I were to pick one plantation on your list just to see the grounds rather than a full tour, it would be Oak Alley. The house was nice, of course, but I found the tour rather rushed and superficial. The oak trees in front are the main reason to visit and they are magnificent. The trees should not be missed.

We spent several days in New Orleans, and then several in Lafayette to do the Cajun thing, stopping at several planations along the way. We did the Tabasco your, which we liked, from Layfayette.

The McIlhenney (sp?)/Tabasco plant isn't all that interesting. My girlfriend said it was "a gift shop with a production facility attached" and I agree. Wasn't worth the 2.5 hours each way to/from New Orleans.

While I agree that the Tabasco Factory was a bit of a let down, I can attest that the Jungle Gardens are nothing short of amazing. We got very lucky and were the only people in the gardens the morning we were there. Also, go to the factory cantina - its in the area where the workers live, is open to the public and is definitely the real deal. We stayed in New Iberia just a short drive from Avery Island - if you're a James Lee Burke fan this is a can't miss place to stay.

Depending on whether or not you're interested in the flora & fauna of the area, Avery Island can be very interesting. There are lovely oriental gardens, a bayou, alligators wandering the property, a heron/egret sanctuary and more.

Avery Island isn't actually an island, it's the top-most portion of an underground salt dome. It is the highest point in South Lousisana at about 280 feet!

It used to be that each worker at AI got a bottle of Tabasco with their paycheck.

P.S. When we were children, our housekeeper used to put Tabasco in our mouths when we talked "potty-talk", reasoning that at least it was food, whereas soap wasn't! I am still not wild about Tabasco.