New Orleans: Camping in NOLA Bayou Segnette State Park, Louisiana • Tiny Red Caravan

So how do you visit New Orleans when you are traveling in a camper or rv? I’m sure there are many ways but here’s how we did it. The two options to rv camping that we knew were from hearsay and Campendium research. One being the French Quarter RV Resort right downtown and the other at Bayou Segnette State Park in the Westwego area. The in-town one was to expensive for us, running $100+ a night. So the logical choice for us was Bayou Segnette. Our electric /water site ran $32 a night. Sites were nice and spacious. There was standing water in some of the sites but a big storm had been through so a little understandable. The bathhouses were nice, although the bleach had not been rinsed off walls and I now have some new white spots in my clothes. Laundry was free! We did not explore the park, but it looked like it had a water park to cool off in the summer months.

GETTING TO DOWNTOWN

Now the fun part, getting to downtown NOLA. It’s about a 10 mile/20 minute trip to the ferry from the campground. The park gave us good info on the Algiers ferry. There is a parking lot there that was currently charging $10 a day to park. We were told that they can change their prices on a whim. But we choose to street park, keeping our fingers crossed that our car would not be ticketed or towed when we returned. The ferry was running once an hour when we were there and cost $2.00 each way. Once across the Mississippi River we took various streetcars to places, Cafe du Monde, the garden district, and the cemeteries. They however, do not always run on time, plan to be early if you are taking a tour and need to be there at a set time.

The biggest problem with this set up is if you want to stay out late. Our last ferry on week nights back to Algiers and the car was 9:30 and weekends 11:30. Some of the music on the week nights didn’t start till 9:00pm so plan accordingly.

We downloaded the RTA app, created an account and bought all of our tickets online. I’d lose a paper ticket in a hour! This way as long as we had our phones we were good. We only needed one account to buy both of our tickets. We purchased a Jazzy pass for the day for $3.00 pp that allowed us to ride any of the streetcars and busses for 24hrs. The ferry and street car employees were very patient with helping everyone figure out their apps and money.

Tip: plan to be on the next to last ferry so if you miss it because a 10 minute freight train cuts off the only way to get to the ship you can get the next one home! 😳 True story! If we had missed the last ferry it could have been a very expensive taxi ride back to the car.

Our daily average price for transportation:
Parking: $0
Ferry RT: $4
Jazzy Pass: $3
TOTAL: $7

So that’s how we did it. But double check prices, schedules and availability before you plan your trip. I loved taking the ferry. We got to see NOLA from the water and the cruise ships in port. And do it all again at night with all the lights twinkling! Beautiful! Even if you don’t camp across the way, walk down and ride the ferry just to say you’ve been on the mighty Mississippi!

To be perfectly honest, I was not really looking forward to NOLA. I’m not into touristy stuff, and hoards of drunken people, but it was so much more then that. The history, the music, and the food! I’m actually wanting to go back! New Orleans, you got me! ⚜️