10 Best Nightlife in Side Trips from New Orleans, Louisiana

This cottage doesn't look like much from the street, but after you pay your cover at the garden gate, you'll soon find yourself on a large covered deck packed with a young crowd dancing to the hottest local Cajun, zydeco, and roots music acts. Check their calendar online for upcoming shows.

This ancient Cajun honky-tonk has live music on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. The bar is open with beers, wine, and cocktails, and the dance floor is always full.

For nearly 40 years, on Friday evenings from mid-March through June and from September through November, dancing crowds converge on downtown Lafayette, where bands play an open-air stage. A happy hour starts at 5 pm, there are local food vendors throughout the evening, and there's even a Kids Zone full of family-friendly activities.

This family-run zydeco club hosts music on Friday and Saturday nights. Sid Williams manages the club, and his brother's band, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas, perform frequently—as does Nathan's son's band, Lil Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers.

Taking place on the last weekend of April, this free multi-day Lafayette music festival is a worthy alternative to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. A regional favorite, it fills the streets with some of the best entertainers, artisans, and chefs from French-speaking nations and communities.

This huge music-and-food fest—which kicks off with the official "Cutting of the Boudin"—is held mid-October in Girard Park. Admission's free and the food's outstanding, but the music is the best thing about it all.

The biggest bash in this neck of the woods is in February or March (depending on when Lent occurs). About a dozen parades take to the streets over a couple of weeks, culminating on "Fat Tuesday," and a festive atmosphere fills the city.

This good Cajun restaurant is also a salle de danse, with music and dancing seven nights a week.

In addition to showcasing the best Cajun and zydeco bands, this two-hour variety program presents local comedians and storytellers and even a "Living Recipe Corner." The show, mostly in French, has been dubbed the "Cajun Grand Ole Opry"; it's held every Saturday at 6 pm in a 1924 movie house and is broadcast on local radio and TV.

Wilbert "Smiley" Menard operates this popular 1950s-style dance hall. On Sunday afternoons from 2 to 6 pm, an older crowd fills the dance floor, gliding to a live band in the way that only the elder generation of Cajun dancers seems to have mastered.