Fantastic Family Trip to Lake Charles, LA
Named one of 2008’s “fantastic family trips” by Scholastic Parent & Child magazine, Lake Charles/Southwest Louisiana invites you to enjoy a vacation unlike any other. Travel the Creole Nature Trail All-American Road, or visit one of our more than 75 fairs and festivals each year, making us the Festival Capital of Louisiana; including the Celtic Nations Heritage Festival in October and a parish-wide Christmas lighting festival complete with parades, both on and off the water, fireworks and more beginning in December! If gaming and excitement are more your style, visit our casino properties for horseracing, slots table games and more. Lake Charles/Southwest Louisiana has something for everyone!
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Contact us:
Southwest Louisiana/Lake Charles Convention and Visitors’ Bureau
1205 N. Lakeshore Dr.
Lake Charles, Louisiana
(800)456-SWLA
Web: www.visitlakecharles.org
Days Inn Louisiana
Spice up your vacation plans this year with a trip to Louisiana, a place buzzing with fun and excitement year-round. Party at Mardi Gras or anytime in New Orleans, hit the casinos, or jazz it up in the streets where the music was born.
Visit www.extendyourdays.com
for more information.
for a select property listing to make your reservation and save even more
Travel Adventures
Travel Adventures provides unforgettable educational travel experiences for over 50,000 students each year. Since 1987, our experienced staff has been designing curriculum-rich itineraries for educators in every academic discipline.
Travel Adventures plans student tours to every major US city and several international destinations and is the only student tour provider to offer the Teacher’s Free & Easy™ and the Student’s Safe & Secure™ programs.
In addition to safety as our number one priority, our focus is making student travel educational and fun for students while ensuring that trip planning is easy for teachers. Please visit us online.
Travel Media
If you mention Louisiana to many people, they immediately think of New Orleans. Steeped in history and southern charm, New Orleans typifies much of what the South is all about, yet in many ways stands apart as one of America's unique cities. Beguiling as New Orleans is, there are many other worthwhile places to go in Louisiana. In Natchitoches, for example, you can wander through several fine antebellum and Colonial plantation structures. Saint Francisville is another living museum of antebellum days with a dozen fine old plantations. In Shreveport, you can explore the American Rose Center or take a river or bayou cruise. The Cajun culture grew and flourished in the Lafayette area, and much of it still remains there. At Acadian Village and Gardens and at Vermilionville, you can see what 19th-century Cajun bayou villages looked like. In Baton Rouge, see two Indian mounds and the old and new state capitols.
RandMcNally.com
Online Traveler
A leisurely week is enough for a loop from New Orleans southwest to Terrebonne Parrish, northwest to Opelousas, east to Baton Rouge, and down the Mississippi back to New Orleans. The best Cajun performers are at the Liberty Theater in Eunice on Saturday evenings. The atmosphere is always festive at Randol's, in Lafayette, where locals dance and consume baskets of spicy crawfish.
Conde Nast Traveler,
Concierge.com
Online Traveler
The D-Day museum was one of the main reasons we came to New Orleans. We were not at all disappointed: on a three-day vacation, we visited twice (one afternoon for the Pacific theater, one for the European theater). My husband and I visit a lot of historical sites and museums, and this museum was by far the best we've ever experienced. The stories, the artifacts, the photos and oral histories and short films, were well-written, well-chosen, and well-organized into a cohesive whole. Every detail seemed important, but you never lost sight of the big picture. I learned a lot: it turns out I knew basically nothing about the Pacific campaigns.
TripAdvisor.com User
Online Traveler
Laura Plantation
We were there Oct 2007 and was given the tour by Norman, the owner of the plantation. His tour was one of the most enjoyable plantation tours that we went on. There is a lot to see and there is a story and tale behind everything. If there is one plantation that you have to visit, be sure to visit the Laura Plantation, especially since it's only 2 minutes away from the Oak Alley Plantation were you can enjoy a nice comparison between the two plantation homes.
TripAdvisor.com User
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Welcome to Louisiana
 Louisiana has the most colorful history of any state and of many countries. Beginning long before the Louisiana Purchase, our state took shape in prehistoric times. We have had a past of many battles, on the battlefield and in the political arena. Our architecture is a lasting impression of French and Spanish rule. Today, there are many reminders of the past in our museums, plantations, historic sites and attractions. Louisiana culture has a rhythm all it’s own—a suite of jazz riffs, zydeco swing, cajun and gospel harmonies. Between the gumbo and the magnolias, you’ll feel our bass line beating from the banks of the Red River to the crescent of the Mississippi, pulsing with the cadence of the streets and the wall of the blues.
www.louisianatravel.com
Christmas Lighting Festival
December 6th - 31st, 2008
 Gather the family together and visit the Christmas festivities of Southwest Louisiana where the sweet treats of the season can be found. Enjoy sipping on hot drinks and munching on sparkling Christmas cookies as you watch the Christmas parade and the tree lighting ceremonies. December is a great time of year in Southwest Louisiana. The dates of each city's parade are; December 6 in Lake Charles, Sulphur, DeQuincy, Starks; December 12 in Vinton; December 13 in Westlake, Iowa, Moss Bluff. Come out and see Santa and all his helpers celebrate the season with family and friends!
More about the Christmas Lighting Festival
Vermilionville
 Vermilionville authentically portrays a way of life preserved with a distinctly French accent. Situated on the banks of the Bayou Vermilion, this Cajun/Creole heritage and folklife park recreates life in the Acadiana area between 1765 and 1890. The beautiful grounds, which are laid out as an historic village, contain eighteen structures, including six restored original homes. In most of the structures, costumed interpreters demonstrate traditional crafts or musical styles. A full-service restaurant, gift shop and art gallery enhance time spent at Vermilionville. The gift shop and art gallery are filled with Cajun and Creole items (many of which are made by our craftspeople) that you are sure to bring home and treasure.
More about Vermilionville
Festivals Acadiens
October 10th - 12th, 2008
Festivals Acadiens et Creole started in 1972 as an effort to keep Cajun culture alive. Since then it has grown into a three day event that attracts people of many different nationalities from all over the world. Whether you're amongst the young or the young at heart, you can bet that Festivals Acadiens has something that will tickle your fancy. The best of Cajun and Zydeco music, authentic Cajun and Creole cooking, traditional and fine artists and craftspeople from across Louisiana can be found at the annual Fetivals Acadiens in Lafayette LA. Come join us for good music, good food, and good times!
More about Festivals Acadiens 37th Annual Louisiana Gumbo Festival
 Come and Eat! Pick your favorite gumbo dish at the Louisiana Gumbo Festival & Gumbo contest. Held annually by the Chackbay Volunteer Fire Department. Fundraisers and donations are their only means of funding the department. They receive no governmental funding and the LA Gumbo Festival is their biggest event. The LA Gumbo Festival is held at the state-of-the-art fairgrounds on the fourth full weekend of October. Bring the whole gang and support the volunteers!
More about the 37th Annual Louisiana Gumbo Festival
40 Years of Guts & Glory
 What began 40 years ago as a "fun" thing by a handful of rodeo-loving inmates and employees is now big business. Proceeds from the Angola Prison Rodeo cover rodeo expenses and supplement the Louisiana State Penitentiary Inmate Welfare Fund which provides for inmate educational and recreational supplies. Hobbycraft space is an all-day full-blown arts and crafts festival, complete with entertainment and food galore. The arts and crafts festival begins at 9 a.m. and continues throughout the rodeo which begins at 2 p.m. each Sunday in October. Many fans come to the rodeo for the arts and crafts show alone.
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Creole Nature Trail
 Embark on a journey along the Creole Nature Trail All-American Road through one of our nation's last great wildernesses - a lush realm of fertile prairies, delicate marshes and abundant wildlife. Discover 180 miles of winding roads through marshlands, across bayous, along the Gulf of Mexico and past rare oak cheniers - ancient remnants of the Mighty Mississippi's wanderings. Explore Louisiana's Outback - a living testament to South Louisiana's natural beauty and unique cultural heritage, a natural haven vital to our entire nation's eco-system.
More about the Creole Nature Trail
Celtic Nations Heritage Festival
October 10th - 12th, 2008
 The Celtic Nations Heritage Festival includes everything you can imagine concerning the Celtic culture: An Irish tea room, Celtic music, highland games, currach racing, public whiskey tasting, Celtic balladeers, puppet shows, Celtic Canines, art galleries, Celtic dancers, sheep herding, Concerts, workshops, a fully stocked pub with live entertainment and numerous Celtic vendors. Come, enjoy and learn about this adventurous culture!
More about the Celtic Nations Heritage Festival
35th Annual French Food Festival
 The French Food Festival is hosted annually on the last full weekend in October and features over 20 local specialty dishes. Dancing and music, along with Folklife demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday, offer everyone the chance to learn about Cajun life-ways -- boat building, cooking, music and more. More than just a food festival, the French Food Festival includes an old-fashioned carnival midway, complete with games, rides, and cotton candy.
More about the 35th Annual French Food Festival
A Rural Life Christmas
December 7th, 2008
 Relive memories of an old fashioned Louisiana Christmas as you view candle lit plantation buildings decorated with freshly cut greenery. Costumed re-enactors will recreate Christmas festivities of the nineteenth century, while twenty-five noted artisans will perform living history demonstrations. Experience seasonal activities that were traditional to south Louisiana, such as sugar cane grinding and syrup making, candle dipping, and rosary making. Musical groups, demonstrating artisans, storytellers, and costumed re-enactors will interpret a traditional Louisiana Christmas. The event will end with a bonfire. This year A Rural Life Christmas program will return to it's traditional Sunday time, 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. Adults, $7.00; children 10 and under, free.
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Travel Adventures
1175 S. Lapeer Road
Lapeer, MI 48446
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Live After Five Concert Series
Downtown Baton Rouge's free concert series event. See free live music and enjoy the hospitality of the downtown Baton Rouge business area. Live After Five is a great event that takes place every Spring and Fall. The Downtown Business Association puts on the event to help promote all the great businesses of the downtown area. There is lots to do and the whole community comes together to have a great time for a few hours every Friday at 5:00pm. The event takes place in the beautiful Galvez Plaza with the stage shadowed by our historic old state capitol building.
More about the Live After Five Concert Series
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