Trips of a Lifetime: Mardi Gras, New Orleans

Mardi Gras—French for “Fat Tuesday”—falls on the last day of Carnival and the day before Ash Wednesday. In 2010, that’s today, February 16, and you can expect N’awlins to be a festive sea of purple, green, and gold—not to mention the colors of the Super Bowl-winning New Orleans Saints! Join the celebrations on Bourbon Street, packed with all the feathers, sequins, beads, masks, floats, and partying you can handle. Following hard on the heels of Mardi Gras comes the equally excellent New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, held over consecutive weekends April 23-25 and April 29-May 2, 2010. This year's lineup includes acts by Pearl Jam, Simon & Garfunkel, Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, Lionel Richie, Darius Rucker, and Widespread Panic, among others.

Photo credit: Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras (courtesy, neworleansonline.com)

World's Most Romantic Escapes #4

For love (or lust), New Orleans rolls into fourth spot on our list of the world's top ten romantic escapes. The Big Easy is well on the comeback route from Katrina, and nowhere in the United States can you find the level of culture, music, and excellent food as you do in N'awlins.

Get inspired with this gallery of romantic images of New Orleans on Trip.com sister site, Away.com.

Photo credit: Bourbon Street, New Orleans (courtesy, New Orleans CVB)

Classic Americana: Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Mardi Gras season officially starts in early January with an event known as Twelfth Night, an indulgent holiday celebrated with a streetcar parade. Most major parades, however, begin two weeks before Mardi Gras Day—February 16, 2010—and continue every day until Fat Tuesday—the day before Lent.

Photo credit: Mardi Gras mask in New Orleans (Medioimages/Photodisc/Getty)

New Orleans Trip Highlights: Jackson Square

The Big Easy's Jackson Square owes its name to local hero Andrew Jackson, who saved the city in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. However, it might have been more appropriate to honor the wealthy Baroness Pontalba, who lead an 1840s civic effort to transform the boggy, Mississippi-soaked wasteland into a civic park surrounded by grand apartments. Her legacy endures today.

Photo credit: Jackson Square, New Orleans (Mitchel Osborne/courtesy, neworleansonline.com)