A day trip with transportation from New Orleans to the Whitney Plantation lets you explore the legacy of antebellum Louisiana on a former sugar plantation. Unique to area plantation museums, this one focuses on slavery. Learn about plantation life from the perspective of slaves through exhibits and narratives, and walk in the footsteps of those who lived and toiled here as you visit preserved slave cabins and the Spanish Creole Big House.

Board a coach in the French Quarter and leave New Orleans behind for the swampy shores of Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. Arrive at Whitney Plantation, a one-time sugar and indigo plantation that dates back more than 260 years. Unique among Louisiana’s historic plantations, Whitney is dedicated to promoting an understanding of slavery in the American South.

Hear firsthand accounts of the hardships of plantation life through narratives recorded by the Federal Writers’ Project, and browse historic artifacts in a series of exhibits. See some of the surviving slaves cabins, which stand in sharp contrast to the stately Big House, considered one of Louisiana’s best surviving examples of Spanish Creole architecture. Several memorials and pieces of art dedicated to the memory of enslaved people offer a chance to reflect before the return drive to New Orleans.

The tour ends at the original departure point.