American Rhythms Fly Drive

Ten nights in a loop from New Orleans, self-guided, through five states of the Deep South, with the flights included.

Ten nights and eight stops makes this the busiest itinerary in the operator’s southern range, and the reward is a route that takes in the music, the Civil War and the Cajun country rather than choosing one.

New Orleans opens it for two nights, with the French Quarter, Jackson Square and a bayou tour or a riverboat cruise. Biloxi follows, with an optional shrimping trip, then Mobile, founded in 1702 as the capital of the Louisiana Territory, and a night in Montgomery, where the Civil War and the civil rights movement are both documented. Birmingham comes next with the Vulcan, a fifty-six-foot cast iron statue made for the 1904 World’s Fair, then Nashville for two nights and Memphis for one. Vicksburg follows, where the military park holds over thirteen hundred monuments and the largest Union burial ground in the country, with seventeen thousand graves. The Natchez Trace Parkway leads to Natchez, the oldest settlement in Mississippi, with its antebellum houses including Longwood, then Lafayette and Avery Island, where Tabasco has been made since the 1860s.

Return flights to New Orleans, a checked bag each way, ten days of fully inclusive car hire and ten nights across the eight stops are included; fuel, resort fees, most meals, the optional tours and the house admissions are not. The price shown is per person sharing. Spring and autumn are the seasons, since the Gulf states in high summer are hot and humid and the hurricane season runs into November. Eleven days and five states means some long days behind the wheel, which is the trade for a route that covers this much ground.