There’s no denying that New Orleans is one of the most alluring cities in the world. With the waterside romance of Venice, the musical energy of Havana, and the exoticism of Beirut all wrapped up into a unique Southern City. If you’re looking for homes for sale in Louisiana, here are 7 reasons to relocate to New Orleans.
You’ll Be Moving Into A Unique Cultural World Capital
You could make a strong argument that New Orleans has more in common with cities of the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean than it does with anywhere else in the U.S. Be it the civil infrastructure focused on a mix of pedestrian, car, and trolley traffic, or the general lack of skyscrapers outside the business district. If you’re not from NOLA, the city will feel foreign, the only contender for a more foreign-feeling city in the U.S. might be Miami.
The Creole culture is not just a Disney-fied myth, it’s a living breathing reality in New Orleans. There’s an attitude of morbid celebration, where the streets can be filled with parades one day and floodwaters the next. There’s an attitude that the good and bad of life are absolutely vital to the New Orleans experience. Living in a Gulf Coast city is not always an easy picnic.
There will be hurricanes, there will be hot days, and there will be that unquantifiable and undefinable sense of community that you’ll find in any group of people that undergo both hardships and celebrations together. New Orleans is often thought of as one big party when really it’s one massive extended family always bickering, eating, working, and banding together.
You’ll find plenty of museums and art galleries all around New Orleans, but those are just windows into the culture. The real culture of New Orleans is in the streets and in the homes of the people you meet, both on Bourbon Street and off it. You can live anywhere in NOLA, from the heart of the old city to the distant suburbs, and get more connected to that culture than you would in a hundred hours of walking around the museums.
One Of The Best Music Cities In The World
All cities have a certain noise associated with them, and that city song changes depending on where you go, the same way a long piece of music will change depending on where you’re at in the song. Some New Orleans neighborhoods are quiet and refined; others are boisterous and rowdy.
The Marigny neighborhood is the undisputed classic queen of New Orleans live music. You can literally walk down the street in the middle of the day and hear the best live music of your life pouring out of the clubs, especially during festival days. Whether you’re a professional musician or an amateur enthusiast, you will love playing music in New Orleans just as much as you love living in New Orleans.
Though the city is famous for jazz, just about every genre of music on Earth has its own special place in NOLA, from bluegrass to black metal and rap to reggae. It all fits in. So if you’re itching to relocate to New Orleans, aim for anything within a half mile of Marigny and you’ll be set.
The Food
At this point it’s almost a cliche to talk about New Orleans cuisine, but cliches happen for a reason. Every city has a signature dish, but very few have their very own food culture as (arguably) their pure essence. Food is French in New Orleans, but not Parisian French or Quebecois French. It’s French food that’s been dragged from Martinique to Mexico until you can hardly recognize it anymore, then doused in the Mississippi (not literally) and served up in great quantities.
Food is usually a private thing in most of America, but in New Orleans, the whole community regularly gets involved. From church dinners to backyard Football watch parties you’ll find yourself eating food more often with friends and family, and even strangers, than you will on your own.
You can find great food all across NOLA, but If you’re looking into New Orleans real estate and you want to live close to the highest concentration of good food, check out the Warehouse District, Lower Garden District, Lakeview, and Uptown.
New Orleans Is Surrounded By Unique Environments
Just because there are no mountains in sight doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the great outdoors if you relocate to New Orleans. New Orleans is surrounded by marshes, swamps, and wetlands that can be explored somewhat on foot but better on a boat. Areas of interest you should consider are the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve and the myriad wildlife refuges around the Mississippi delta. Be respectful and responsible for the unique natural wonders around New Orleans, and you’ll have no trouble balancing the urban and natural landscapes.
The Caribbean Is At Your Doorstep
Though NOLA residents aren’t as lucky as Miami folks who can hop to the Bahamas in an hour or less, you’ll still be closer to the islands and coastlines of the Caribbean than most everyone else in the U.S. You’ll hardly ever have to take more than a four-hour flight to get to any country that touches the Caribbean, and if you have friends and family living in Mexico or Central America, visiting them will be much easier.
New Orleans is closer to Mexico City and Havana than it is to D.C. or New York City. If you’re a traveler, take advantage of NOLA’s unique location and explore as much of Latin America as you can while you’re so close.
New Orleans Has A Ton Of Historic Homes For Sale
New Orleans is one of the few American cities where more current properties were built before the Second World War than after. NOLA doesn’t just have a historic downtown, most of the city looks hardly changed from the 19th century. There’s a strong current of preservation in New Orleans that has kept many historic structures still standing and still vital parts of the city. That’s not to say that New Orleans isn’t modern, but rather that the modern world has been applied over New Orleans like layers, rather than knocking everything down and building up modernity in its place.
If you’re relocating to New Orleans, you can find that quintessential stately New Orleans mansion if you want it. That high-end historic housing is mostly on the city’s western side, especially around Tulane University and in the Garden District. But if you’re looking for the more rugged, ‘used’ houses of NOLA that call back to A Streetcar Named Desire, check out homes in the Bywater, St. Claude, and Seventh Ward neighborhoods.
New Orleans Has Great Suburbs
If you want to relocate to New Orleans but need more space for yourself, don’t fear. New Orleans has tons of great suburbs open to you. Most NOLA suburbs are to the north and west of the city, go south or east and you’ll soon run out of land. Suburbs though they may be, the neighborhoods west of Nola proper are just as interconnected and charismatic as any you’ll find in the city; they’re just a little more spread out. We have a whole guide on the best suburbs of New Orleans that you should check out here!
7 Reasons to Relocate to New Orleans
New Orleans already has a great public relations team made up of just about everybody who has lived in or visited the city since it got started as a little French trading port in 1718. Despite being one of the most famous cities in the world, NOLA has a funky attitude about it that makes you think none of the locals would care if everyone forgot NOLA ever existed because this city is a world in and of itself. If you ever get sick of living on Earth, get in touch with a New Orleans real estate agent, and make a move to the strange and delightful city of New Orleans.
