3 Best Sights in Mobile, Alabama

Experience colonial life at this former French outpost, where Mobile was born. Today, the city's French origins endure in its Creole cuisine and at this historic site. Roughly 150 years after the fort was destroyed, its remains were discovered during construction of the Interstate 10 interchange. A rebuilt portion houses the city's visitor center as well as a museum. Costumed guides conduct tours.

Interactive exhibits and special collections of antique silver, weapons, and more tell the 300-year history of Mobile. The Southern Market/Old City Hall, an 1857 National Historic Landmark Italianate building, houses the museum. A Civil War cannon, miniature houses, and souvenirs from Mobile's oldest mystic societies, the secretive social groups that stage the city’s Mardi Gras celebrations, are on display.

Mobile boasts America’s oldest annual Carnival celebration, which started in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was founded. Festivities, including parades and masquerade balls, begin in November and continue through Fat Tuesday in mid-February. Find the celebration schedule and learn about the city’s Mardi Gras history at the Mobile Carnival Museum at the historic Bernstein-Bush house. Fourteen gallery rooms, a pictorial hallway, theater, den, and gift shop show off royal robes, crowns, scepters, and more.