New Orleans Swamp Tour
 

We are going to be in New Orleans late February and would like to do a swamp tour. There are so many different options - does anyone have any suggestions on type of boat (air boat vs. swamp boat) and a recommendation on a tour guide? Thanks

For any tour of New Orleans -- and most especially for plantation tours -- would strongly recommend taking one that does not have a minimum if at all possible. Most tour companies do have such minimums, and if they don't meet their limit, they won't go and usually don't decide until the last possible minute; makes planning ahead a royal pain. Some companies lie about having minimum quotas, too. Press them if they say they don't have minimums, or better yet contact NOLA tourist information for honest info here and recommendations for the most reliable companies.

For the month of February, if you do a swamp tour, I'd recommend a covered boat, as it can rain quite a bit this time of year (25 inches in December).

Save the airboat for the Spring when the weather is better.

And only go for 1/2 a day - as I'm so fond of saying, you see one nutria, gator and/or blue heron you've seen them all.

My husband thinks a swamp tour is a bad idea because he expects there will be many mosquitos there. Mosquitos love me to death. Can anyone that's taken a swamp tour comment on whether they returned with a million mosquito bites or not?

Always wear insect repellant.

We went once in May and once in September and I can't say I noticed mosquito bites either time. Both were in the middle of the day so maybe that had something to do with it?

Mosquitos love me too, but I just wear repellant and come back pretty much bite-free.

As for the choice of an airboat, outboard motor boat, pontoon boat, etc. - I would skip the airboat entirely even if rain wasn't a consideration. Those airboats are fun, but they are really noisy.

Thanks for your input everyone. It is very helpful. I now have insect repellant on my list and I think we are going to wait until we get there and see what the weather is like before making a decision. It is unlikely that the tours would be full and, if they are, that is something we can save for the next time.

I know this post is a few months old, but I have a similar question to the OP.

I may be in the NO area on business either in October or sometime in the Spring, and I may want to do a swamp tour in my free time. Mosquitoes love me to death and even if I'm covered in repellent, I'll get bitten. If I had a choice between when to go, is October or springtime better (meaning, when are there fewer mosquitoes)? Is there any difference between those times of the year?

Hmm, that's a good question. Between those 2, I'd have to say October. Now, I don't live in a swamp but I know we can start seeing LARGE mosquitoes in Mississippi I'd say in March. Plus the humidity will largely have broken by October even though it's still hot during the day. Depending upon what time in spring you're talking about, I'd say the skeeters will be plentiful.

Thanks Madmarsha.

It depends on when in the Spring. In March to early April, there will be few mosquitoes. Once you get into late April to May then there are more mosquitoes.

October can be a mixed bag. It can be extremely warm and humid with tons of mosquitoes, warm and dry with little mosquitoes. The weather is usually fantastic though!

Another point: there will probably be more scenery in the Spring than the Fall. Seeing the swamp in bloom is a wonderful thing. But the swamp will still be green in October.

There's always a chance of hurricanes in October, though, right?

I don't live in Louisiana, but I did a boat tour of Lake Martin in May 2008, and I can offer a few thoughts:

1. Swamp tours come in different flavors. Some are incredibly loud airboats that rattle your brain and drive away all the wildlife. Some are big party boats, jam-packed with people, with boisterous tour operators who throw big chunks of meat overboard, so that alligators leap up dramatically and snatch the bait. The one I did was entirely different. It was on a small boat with a very quiet outboard motor, and with just the two of us and our tour guide, Norbert LeBlanc. I can't recommend Norbert highly enough. He's a Cajun man who has lived on the Lake his whole life, and who was well into his 80's when we visited. He pointed out a lot of interesting natural features, and told some good stories. The lake was spectacularly beautiful. Apparently he now has a facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breaux...s/314302327673

At Cafe des Amis in nearby Breaux Bridge (a fantastic restaurant, by the way) there were some brochures from another promising tour operator, a guy who I believe had some sort of forestry degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and who conducts small, ecologically sensitive tours in another small, quiet boat. He's actually the one who directed us to Norbert.

2. On our tour, I wore no insect repellant, and I don't think I got a single mosquito bite, despite the fact that I'm usually kind of a mosquito magnet. Norbert said there weren't many mosquitos around, because there was some species of bird around Lake Martin that eats up mosquitos. I don't remember the name of the bird, and I have no idea if this changes in the various seasons, or if other lakes are similarly mosquito-free.