Weird & unusual things to do in New Orleans
The genuinely offbeat side of New Orleans: 75 hand-vetted hidden spots — oddity shops, hidden bars, haunted history, sound baths, weird outdoor finds — built for an unusual date night, a weird afternoon, or showing a visitor a side of the city they'd never find alone. Like Island of Salvation Botanica, Voodoo Authentica of New Orleans Cultural Center & Collection, Voodoo Spiritual Temple. Local secrets even locals miss — you didn't hear it from us.
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Island of Salvation Botanica
Run since 1995 by Sallie Ann Glassman, one of the few formally initiated Vodou priestesses in the U.S., this…
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Voodoo Authentica of New Orleans Cultural Center & Collection
Practitioner-owned and operated since 1996, this is a shop, temple, and teaching space rolled into one on qui…
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Voodoo Spiritual Temple
Founded in 1990 by Priestess Miriam Chamani and her late husband Priest Oswan Chamani, this is a genuine work…
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Bottom of the Cup Tearoom
Established in 1929 and run by four generations of the same family, this bills itself as the oldest tearoom i…
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Boutique du Vampyre
Opened in 2003, this is billed as one of the world's first vampire-themed boutiques, tucked into a half-addre…
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Hex: Old World Witchery
A working witchcraft shop on lower Decatur staffed by practicing witches, geared as much to serious practitio…
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New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum
Open since 1972, this famously tiny museum occupies just a few dim rooms in a French Quarter house, jammed wa…
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The Mortuary
An 1872 Grand Victorian mansion that the P.J. McMahon & Sons undertaking firm ran as a funeral home from 1923…
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New Orleans Pharmacy Museum
Set in an 1823 apothecary built for Louis Dufilho Jr., often cited as America's first licensed pharmacist, th…
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Beauregard-Keyes House
An 1826 raised center-hall mansion that Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard rented after the Civil War and…
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Muriel's Jackson Square (Séance Lounge)
A Creole restaurant on Jackson Square whose upstairs Séance Lounge is tied to Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan,…
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St. Louis Cemetery No. 1
The oldest surviving cemetery in New Orleans, opened in 1789, a dense maze of above-ground tombs just outside…
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Hotel Monteleone
A Beaux-Arts grand hotel founded in 1886 by Sicilian cobbler Antonio Monteleone and still run by his family,…
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LaLaurie Mansion (exterior)
The Empire-style mansion at Royal and Governor Nicholls is tied to one of the city's most genuinely horrific…
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Museum of Death
The New Orleans branch of the cult Los Angeles original packs an unflinching collection into a handful of roo…
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Dark Matter Oddities & Artisan Collective
A French Quarter shop where full-sized taxidermy, articulated skeletons, and wet specimens share shelves with…
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The Shop: Oddities at Unique NOLA
A cluttered French Quarter store that's part hoodoo supply, part taxidermy-as-art, part jumble of random ephe…
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Abita Mystery House (UCM Museum)
Artist John Preble built this folk-art warren around a vintage gas station and filled it with more than 50,00…
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The Bywater Museum of Unnatural History
A tiny, one-of-a-kind cabinet-of-curiosities museum (it kept its old Bywater name after relocating to Mandevi…
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House of Dance & Feathers
A backyard museum of New Orleans street culture founded in 2003 by Ronald W. Lewis, documenting Mardi Gras In…
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The Sazerac House
A free three-story museum and working micro-distillery at the corner of Canal and Magazine devoted to the his…
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Music Box Village
A one-acre forested lot crowded with more than a dozen artist-built shacks and structures that are also playa…
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Studio BE
Muralist Brandan 'BMike' Odums turned a 36,000-square-foot Bywater warehouse into a single immersive environm…
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Dr. Bob's Folk Art
Self-taught artist Dr. Bob has worked out of this Bywater studio since the 1990s, churning out his instantly…
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The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA
An ~11-acre walkable sculpture garden behind the New Orleans Museum of Art, threading roughly 90 to 100 works…
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Chauvin Sculpture Garden
An outsider-art environment on the bayou where former bricklayer Kenny Hill, working alone from 1990 until he…
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The Tree of Life (Etienne de Boré Oak)
This colossal southern live oak sprawls so low and wide that its limbs rest on the ground and rise again like…
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Old Man River Statue
Rising 18 feet from the Mississippi riverfront in Woldenberg Park stands a starkly abstract human figure carv…
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The Singing Oak
A roughly 125-year-old live oak hung with wind chimes the size of small flagpoles, some up to 14 feet long, p…
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St. Roch Chapel and Ex-Voto Room
Inside this 1870s shrine, built after a priest's congregation survived yellow fever, a small side room sits b…
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Bayou St. John / Magnolia Bridge (Cabrini Bridge)
This slow, brackish bayou was Marie Laveau's reputed ritual ground in the 1800s, and the iron Magnolia Bridge…
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Metairie Cemetery (Lake Lawn Metairie)
Built atop the former 1838 Metairie Race Course, this sprawling cemetery has the city's largest collection of…
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Holt Cemetery
A rare in-ground potter's field, established in 1879, where most graves were handmade by families rather than…
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Beachbum Berry's Latitude 29
Tucked into the lobby of the Bienville House Hotel, this is the personal bar of Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, the co…
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Cane & Table
Behind a Decatur Street facade near the quiet lower end of the Quarter, Cane & Table opens into a crumbling-p…
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Jewel of the South
Set in a restored 1830s Creole cottage with a hidden garden courtyard and wood-framed parlour rooms, Jewel is…
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Pirate's Alley Cafe & Olde Absinthe House
Wedged into the narrow flagstone passage of Pirates Alley behind St. Louis Cathedral, this tiny cafe is one o…
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Bar Tonique
On the quiet Rampart Street edge of the Quarter, Tonique is a small brick room with a working fireplace and a…
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Manolito
A Cuban bar named for Manuel "Manolito" Carbajo Aguiar, a beloved bartender from Havana's legendary El Florid…
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Cure
Set in a converted firehouse on Freret Street, well uptown of the tourist core, Cure is widely credited with…
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Cajun Pride Swamp Tours (Manchac Swamp)
This privately owned wildlife refuge sits in the Manchac Swamp about 25 miles from New Orleans, where flat-bo…
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Dr. Wagner's Honey Island Swamp Tours
Founded in 1982 by Tulane wetland ecologist Dr. Paul Wagner (now retired), these reservation-only boat tours…
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Insta-Gator Ranch and Hatchery
This working alligator ranch on the north shore is part of Louisiana's wild-gator conservation program, raisi…
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Jungle Gardens (Avery Island Buddha)
Ned McIlhenny, son of the Tabasco founder, spent decades turning this salt-dome island into a 170-acre semi-w…
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Global Wildlife Center
Tucked into the rolling north-shore countryside, this 900-acre free-roaming preserve holds more than 2,000 ex…
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Whitney Plantation
Whitney is the only museum in Louisiana that focuses exclusively on the lives of the enslaved rather than the…
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New Orleans Glassworks & Printmaking Studio
Billed as the largest glass and printmaking facility of its kind in the South, this Magazine Street studio ha…
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YAYA Glassworks (YAYA Arts Center)
YAYA (Young Aspirations / Young Artists) is a long-running New Orleans youth-arts nonprofit, and its LaSalle…
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Church Mouse Forge
Church Mouse Forge is a working Irish Channel blacksmith shop offering hands-on classes where you fire up the…
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NOLA Metalsmithing
Tucked into a Royal Street studio at the Marigny/Bywater edge, NOLA Metalworks (the working studio that took…
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RT Ceramics
RT Ceramics is run by New Orleans artist and potter Ron Tolie, who built his offering around the Pottery Date…
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Heartsleeve
Heartsleeve is a purpose-driven New Orleans design and screen-printing studio founded by Bernie January Jr. a…
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Tijon New Orleans
Tijon is a working fragrance lab tucked on Toulouse Street where you pull on a lab coat and build a perfume f…
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New Orleans School of Cooking
Set inside a renovated 1830s molasses warehouse in the French Quarter, this school runs a three-hour hands-on…
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Bayou Rose
Bayou Rose is a French Quarter fragrance apothecary on Dumaine Street where small-batch perfumes are custom b…
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Puddle ClayWorks
Puddle ClayWorks is a 1,200-square-foot ceramics studio with four electric wheels and three kilns, pitched as…
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Emporium Arcade Bar
An adults-only barcade set inside an old industrial garage on St. Claude, with the exterior wrapped in local…
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Mystic Krewe Pinball Parlor
Tucked inside the Broad Theater, this is the public arm of the Mystic Krewe pinball collective and is billed…
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Rendezvous Tavern
A longtime Magazine Street neighborhood bar (open since 1969) that has a dedicated pinball room alongside poo…
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Old Town Slidell Soda Shop
An old-fashioned soda shop in Slidell's historic Olde Towne district with a genuine arcade tucked inside, mix…
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Escape My Room
Built inside a former funeral home two blocks from the National WWII Museum, this escape room spins an elabor…
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Clue Carré
Billed as New Orleans' first live escape game, Clue Carré leans hard into local folklore with rooms like The…
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Pickle N Pins
Co-founded by former Saints quarterback Drew Brees and Darren Balsamo, this sprawling Metairie game hall comb…
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City Putt
The city's only dedicated mini-golf complex sits inside New Orleans City Park with two 18-hole courses. One c…
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LIGO Science Education Center (Livingston)
One of two twin LIGO detectors in the U.S. (its sibling sits in Washington State) that proved Einstein right…
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Gretna Observatory at Mel Ott Park
The largest public observatory in greater New Orleans hides inside a 16-foot rotating dome on the West Bank i…
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Bayou Paddlesports Night Paddle
Once a month Bayou Paddlesports runs a two-hour night paddle down Bayou St. John after the sun goes down, gli…
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Canoe & Trail Adventures Moonlight Paddle
Louisiana Master Naturalist guides lead small moonlight paddles through the bayous and swamps near Fontainebl…
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Kenner Planetarium & Megadome Cinema Late Nite Laser
Inside Kenner's Rivertown Space Science Complex, the planetarium tilts a 50-foot domed screen over 118 stadiu…
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Highland Road Park Observatory (Baton Rouge)
Run by BREC with the Baton Rouge Astronomical Society, this observatory opens to the public on Friday and Sat…
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Prytania Theatre Midnight Movies
The Prytania is the oldest single-screen movie house in Louisiana, a century-old neighborhood theater run by…
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Frenchmen Art Bazaar Night Market
A nighttime open-air art market that sets up in a string-lit lot right on the Frenchmen Street music strip in…
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The Broadside
Opened by the indie Broad Theater during the pandemic, The Broadside is an open-air lot in Mid-City built aro…
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LUNA Fête
LUNA Fête is Arts New Orleans' free annual festival of light, art and technology that turns downtown into an…
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De La Ronde Ruins
Built in 1805 by Colonel Pierre Denis de la Ronde, this grand plantation home served as a British headquarter…
Unusual things to do in New Orleans — FAQ
What are some unusual things to do in New Orleans?
75 hand-vetted weird spots — like Island of Salvation Botanica, Voodoo Authentica of New Orleans Cultural Center & Collection, Voodoo Spiritual Temple — plus oddity shops, hidden bars, haunted history, sound baths, and offbeat outdoor finds. Every one is real and sourced, not a top-ten landmark.
Where can you go for a weird date night in New Orleans?
Try Island of Salvation Botanica, Voodoo Authentica of New Orleans Cultural Center & Collection, Voodoo Spiritual Temple — strange-but-real spots that make a memorable date. Filter by neighborhood, vibe, or how far you'll drive: in town, nearby, or a day trip.
What's a weird thing to do in New Orleans tonight or this weekend?
For tonight, filter to "in town" and low-key picks; for the weekend, the day-trip ring opens up genuinely strange spots a short drive out. Start with Island of Salvation Botanica, Voodoo Authentica of New Orleans Cultural Center & Collection, Voodoo Spiritual Temple — and sort by how far you're willing to go.
Are there free or cheap weird things to do in New Orleans?
Yes — 39 New Orleans spots are free or low-cost, like New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, Abita Mystery House (UCM Museum). Roadside oddities, public art, and outdoor curiosities usually cost nothing.
How is this different from the usual New Orleans tourist lists?
We skip the landmarks everyone knows. An agentic research system digs up the genuinely hidden, offbeat spots — the local secrets even locals miss — and verifies each against real sources before it makes the list.