• Soak up New Orleans' famous music. Old-line musicians play over meals, street musicians huddle in doorways at dusk and free concerts are offered weekly in the French Quarter. Louis Armstrong, Harry Connick Jr, Fats Domino and Jelly Roll Morton are all part of the city's rich musical heritage.

• Visit Bourbon Street for traditional jazz at its best in the heart of the French Quarter. Listen to New Orleans-style jazz played by veteran musicians in the legendary Preservation Hall, a bare bones music hall echoing the days of slaves making music along the Mississippi Delta.

• Attend New Orleans' Mardi Gras (website: www.mardigrasneworleans.com) - the biggest party of the year. It rocks the whole city during the three weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday. Colourful parades, masquerade balls and street parties make the festival one of the loudest and liveliest celebrations in the world.

• Take a mysterious bayou/swamp tour, led by Cajun storytellers. Sample the food, music and take the opportunity to go crawfish harvesting with the locals.

• Explore the Mississippi River on one-day cruises or longer on ferries or paddlewheel steamboats. Steamboat Natchez has harbour, dinner and jazz cruises (website: www.steamboatnatchez.com).

• Cruise through the swamps and bayous, past cypress trees hung with Spanish moss, looking for alligators and birdlife. Honey Island Swamp (website: www.honeyislandswamp.com) and Louisiana Swamp Tours (website: www.louisianaswamp.com) offer a selection of special cruises through the Louisiana swamps, including buffet and dinner cruises.

• Visit the Baton Rouge Zoo (website: www.brzoo.org) with its 57 hectares (140 acres) of walk-through areas and forest settings for over 400 animals.

• Look out for ducks, geese, alligators, nutria and muskrats on the Creole Nature Trail (website: www.creolenaturetrail.org) near Lake Charles.

• Grab your rod for year-round fishing in the region known as ‘Sportman's Paradise'. Its many forests and lakes offer opportunities for fishing, hunting, canoeing and hiking, and an annual fishing tournament takes place at Toledo Bend.

• Place your bet at Louisiana Downs Thoroughbred Racetrack, across the Red River from Shreveport, in Bossier City. It is open for racing from late spring until the autumn.

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.