This past week marked the fifth time I’ve been to the Big Easy, and it was nearly 11 years to the day since my very first visit.  New Orleans is now the city I’ve been to most with the exception of nearby Chicago, and it got me thinking about how my trips have seemed to evolve with each time over the past decade.

From my time as an idiot college student on my first trip to this great city to what I would envision a trip would look like as a retiree, I’ve come up with the Evolution of the New Orleans Tourist.  Here are the 5 stages one goes through when visiting this highly entertaining city full of great food, great drinks, and temptation around every turn.

Stage One – The College Trip

When asking someone what they think of when saying the words New Orleans, many people would quip back with the words Bourbon Street.  For me and seven of my closest friends, this was certainly all we cared about on our first trip to the Big Easy as 21-year-old college students on Spring Break.

At that time in my life, travel revolved around my priorities at the time, which were, in no particular order: partying, drinking, watching sports, eating, drinking, meeting females, getting as little sleep as is humanly possible, and drinking.

Eight young college boys crammed into one hotel room (not a pretty sight) for two nights of pure debauchery.  It was Heaven for us as we meandered down Bourbon Street popping in and out of nearly every bar, throwing down hurricanes and hand grenades and Huge Ass Beers.  We didn’t see much outside of Bourbon Street and the Quarter.  We ate one decent meal while getting by on Krystal and whatever else we could scrounge up.  We slept very little, drank very much, and had the time that all 21-year-old college kids should have while on Spring Break.  For us, it was amazing, and we loved every minute of our whirlwind two days in NOLA.

Stage 1a – The Bachelor Party Trip

If you’re a young man in your twenties and you’ve never been to New Orleans for a bachelor party, then start planning now.  Along with Vegas, a bachelor party in NOLA should be a rite of passage for any group of male friends living in the United States.

What more could you ask for?  24 hour bars seemingly everywhere, super strong drinks around every turn, casinos, gentleman’s clubs, no open container laws, and a party atmosphere that rivals any city in the world.

We were lucky enough to go to the Big Easy for a dual bachelor party that saw over 30 guys in their mid-twenties stumbling their way around the city for 3 days of ridiculous antics and hilarious stories that we all still talk about years later.

The evolution from The College Trip to The Bachelor Party is more of a lateral move, hence this being Stage 1a, but we did eat a few more decent meals and got out of the city to play a little golf, so we did venture out more than the College Trip.

Stage 2 – The Girlfriend Trip

This stage can involve quite a bit of evolution from the previous stage(s), depending on your significant other.  Luckily my then girlfriend, now wife likes to get after it a bit when it comes to partying.  So while there was a step up in evolution, it wasn’t quite the huge step that some may go through.  This trip will see more emphasis on food and meals, maybe even a nice, fancy, romantic one (pack more than shorts and flip flops, fellas).  Costs will most likely be more, experiences remembered in more detail rather than a haze, and more of the city will be explored.

The first girlfriend trip saw us explore more than the French Quarter and Bourbon Street (including one of our personal favorites for whenever we visit NOLA, Frenchman Street).  Our car actually moved because it wasn’t 72 hours of drinking like the previous two trips, so we got to see the Garden District and the cemeteries that New Orleans is famous for.  We still had 2 late nights in our 4 there, but we also were up early enough for breakfast all mornings but one (which is a meal I hadn’t seen yet in my previous two visits) and we were in bed before midnight twice as well (which was about 5 hours before my earliest bedtime on my other two trips).  This stage marks the stage where booze consumption is starting to become less important than other activities in the city.

Stage 3 – The Wife Trip

A few more years pass, the girlfriend becomes the wife, the crazy nights out start to become fewer and fewer, and hangovers take longer to recover from.  You are excited to get out of town and get the opportunity to re-live your college days.  You don’t have kids, yet, so a proper night out isn’t out of the question, but you ponder whether it’s worth it.  You’ve realized the food in New Orleans is actually more important to you than the alcohol consumption, so you don’t want to mess up your appetite too much.  A gander down Bourbon Street, if only once, is still on the itinerary.

Nice dinners, having cocktails at lunch that don’t turn into all day drinking binges, seeing great, live music, and exploring more and more of the less touristy areas are all part of The Wife stage.  You may even want to have a nice, picnic lunch at Audubon Park (a park I didn’t know existed until my fourth time there), throw a blanket down, and enjoy a good book (did I even read in college?).    This stage is much more tame, and while you may be down for one crazy night out, it most likely will involve water in between each beer so as to make the hangover less brutal the next day (I sure as hell wasn’t drinking water at a bar in college).

Stage 4 – The Family Trip

While I have yet to get to this stage, I have witnessed it on my previous trips to the Big Easy, and I imagine it going something like this.  A kid or two is now in the mix, so Bourbon Street and it’s plethora of nudie bars and misbehaving youngsters is out (though Dad might accidentally turn down the wrong block).  Wandering the River Walk, checking out the French Market, taking a steamboat cruise, and checking out the entertainers in and around Jackson Square are all activities on the itinerary.

Good food is in the mix, too, but kid friendly restaurants need to be sought out.  Live music is on the backburner except for the street performers you wander upon.  A late night out is certainly out of the question.  Taking a ride on the streetcar as a tourist activity will probably excite the kids, and it’s a good way to get to the Zoo.  All in all, a great time can still be had in NOLA with the kids, but the trip is going to look a whole lot different than that one you took as a college senior.

Stage 5 – The Retiree Trip

Suddenly the kids are grown, they’re out of the house, and you have more time and energy than you’ve had in years.  You start to go out again, maybe even having more than one cocktail at dinner.  Travel is so much different without the kids, and you feel like you can do things you haven’t done in decades.  While a late night out may not reach midnight, some of those same bars you frequented in your 20′s may be back on the list.  Live music is something you can get into again, and you can eat wherever you want without having to worry if it’s kid-friendly.

Many shops and restaurants don’t open early in New Orleans, so you may want to set the alarm for a little later than the normal 5am wake-up call you’re used to.  You have money, so you can at least afford to take cabs instead of having to walk or wait for the street cars.  The affordability of food shouldn’t be a factor, either, so you can have really nice meals three times a day, something that is hard for all the other stages.  All in all, stage five doesn’t sound too bad.

What Stage are you in?

It took me nearly a decade, but I finally evolved to stage 3 on this last trip to NOLA.  Eating great food, seeing live music, and exploring parts of the city I had never seen before took precedent over getting fall down drunk.

Have you been to New Orleans before?  What stage were you in when you went?  What stage would you be at if you went now?  Comment below, and let me know.