What's a good 3-day itinerary for New Orleans?

Day 1 stays inside the French Quarter's 12-block grid. Start at Cafe Du Monde on Decatur Street by 8am, before the line wraps past the takeaway window. Three beignets arrive dusted in so much powdered sugar that your first breath sends a white cloud across the table. Chicory coffee, served au lait, costs about $3.57. Walk two blocks northwest to Jackson Square, laid out in 1721 and still the geographic anchor of the old city. St. Louis Cathedral faces the square, its triple spires dating to 1794. The Cabildo next door, built in 1795, housed the Louisiana Purchase transfer. Lunch at Central Grocery on Decatur for the original muffuletta, a round sesame loaf packed with olive salad, mortadella, and provolone for around $19. Let it sit 10 minutes so the olive brine soaks into the bread. Skip Bourbon Street until 9:30pm. Before dark it reeks of stale beer and industrial cleaner. After dark, live brass from Fritzel's European Jazz Pub gives the block a different feel entirely.

Day 2 rides the St. Charles streetcar from Canal Street into the Garden District. The fare is $1.25, exact change only. The 25-minute ride passes under live oaks so dense the sunlight comes through in moving patches on the wooden seats. Get off at Washington Avenue. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 sits one block south, its above-ground tombs dating to 1833. Commander's Palace is across the street at Washington and Coliseum. Their turtle soup, thick with sherry and lemon, has been on the menu since the restaurant opened in 1893. The 25-cent martini lunch runs Tuesday through Friday. Walk Magazine Street south toward Audubon Park. The six blocks between Washington and Napoleon are the best stretch for independent shops and galleries on this side of the river. Audubon Park's 1.8-mile loop under the oaks offers shade that open sidewalks in September do not. Dinner at Compère Lapin on Baronne Street in the Lower Garden District, where Caribbean-Creole plates run $18 to $32.

Day 3 starts in Tremé. Louis Armstrong Park opens onto Rampart Street at the neighborhood's southern edge. Congo Square, inside the park, is where enslaved people gathered on Sundays to make music and trade goods, the origin point of jazz as a living practice. From Tremé, take the Canal streetcar or a rideshare 3 miles north to City Park. The New Orleans Museum of Art, founded in 1911, anchors the park's eastern side and is free on Wednesdays. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden behind it costs nothing any day, with 60 works set among lagoons and hanging Spanish moss. Lunch at Ralph's on the Park, facing the live-oak alleys. By mid-afternoon, head to the Marigny, east of the Quarter along the river. Frenchmen Street between Chartres and Dauphine is where locals go for music. The clubs are small, cover runs $5 to $10, and the sound bleeds between doorways so you hear three bands in a single block. Finish at Bacchanal Wine in the Bywater, where a courtyard jazz trio plays most nights over cheese plates at $14 to $22.

September is New Orleans' wettest month. Afternoon thunderstorms hit almost daily but pass within 30 minutes, leaving the sidewalks steaming. A packable rain jacket matters more than an umbrella here. The heat, not the rain, shapes the itinerary. Current temperatures sit near 32°C with 62% humidity, and exposed pavement feels closer to 37°C. Plan indoor stops between 1pm and 3pm each day. Solo-traveler safety scores 3.8 out of 10 (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), so stick to well-lit blocks after dark and avoid poorly lit streets north of Esplanade. The St. Charles streetcar and rideshares cover the longest gaps between neighborhoods, keeping total walking across all three days to about 24 kilometres.