Lonely Planet Louisiana & the Deep South (Lonely Planet Louisiana and the Deep South)

Description

Got a hankering for some down-home eats, toe-tapping music and soul-stirring history? From Southern comforts and juke joints to Civil Rights sites, this guide serves up a heaping helping of the old and the new with a lagniappe of hospitality.

Includes Mississippi, Alabama & Tennessee

• lodging for all budgets, from bayou cabins to historic B&Bs
• advice on finding the best po-boys, barbecue, crawfish, gumbo and more
• 51 detailed maps, including 6 maps of New Orleans
• a fun and helpful glossary of Southern terms and expressions

Covering Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, Lonely Planet provides 69 detailed maps; accommodation options from forest campsites to antebellum plantation mansions; plus history, museums, personalities of the Civil Rights movement, Mississippi blues profiles, clubs, and festivals. The South is a geographically large portion of the country, with terrain that ranges from sunny Gulf coast beaches to Cajun swamps to sugar-cane fields to Appalachian hardscrabble, and for first-time visitors it may feel like a foreign country. It's a good place to have a reliable travel guide, with all the necessary particulars (lodgings, transportation, tourist offices, and liquor laws), plus where to get your pork tenderloin, fried okra, and pecan pie feasts; your hickory-smoked barbecue, corn pone, or shellfish extravaganzas; and your Creole and Cajun comestibles. This guide covers all the bases. Along with comprehensive listings for sightseeing and nightlife, there are interesting sidebars on floating casinos, the etymology of redneck, and a little baseball background on Birmingham's Rickwood Field, plus an introduction to Louisiana's Daiquiri Drive-Thru, where you needn't leave your car to drink and drive. --Stephanie Gold

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2005-12-19
Summary: "Excellent Guide"

This is an excellent introduction and travel guide to the southern states in and around the Mississippi delta region. It covers Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee along with information on towns and cities such as New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and many more.

I recently had the opportunity to travel through most of the region covered in the travel guide - before the hurricane in 2004. I drove my car (from Toronto) down through Louisville and into Tennessee, then on to Alabama, Mississippi, making a loop through New Orleans, going north through Louisiana to Baton Rouge and departing the delta into Texas at Shreveport, taking the interstate to Dallas. This whole delta region is a very unusual region. I was intrigued by the vast areas of swamps in southern Louisiana and the elevated interstate highways. These are constructed like continuous bridges elevated above the swamps. This region contains many beautiful southern farms and forests. I was a bit disappointed by New Orleans and think it is a bit over hyped as a tourist destination and it has a reputation of being a bit dangerous after dark. Having said that it does have its own charm, cooking, and unique culture, and it is probably the most interesting spot to visit in this area. It is a city that one does not want to skip.

The book is an excellent and a very well balanced guide. I was pleasantly surprised to use this book as a guide and resource. It has lots of photographs, maps, descriptions of things to see, places of interest, local culture including southern cooking, and more. The book has many things that communicate the unique lifestyle, history, and culture of the region and it makes for an excellent travel reference. All you need is this book and a book of state highways or download a Yahoo trip planner that gives driving instructions. I prefer the map book that are typically 8.5" x 11" that have one state map per page plus the overall intersate guide at the front.

The guide has the usual lists of hotels and restaurants, but I booked my rooms by the internet or just stayed a local places as I found them by car. Book your city hotels in advance. New Orleans and Memphis are sometimes very busy. In any case the restaurant guide is good.

Good buy and I highly recommend.