Ten years ago this August, Chad and I had our honeymoon in New Orleans.  You might think New Orleans in August is unbearably hot and humid, and the reason we had such a wonderful trip was because we were young and in love.  While that is partially true, I think there is a lot to be said for New Orleans in August.

1. Hotels are super-cheap because you don’t have to compete with convention travelers.

We stayed at the Omni near Bourbon Street for $99 a night and it was the nicest hotel we’d ever stayed in at the time.  If I remember right, its rack rate was quadruple that.  And this was before the days of Hotwire (or at least before I knew about it).

2. There are less people.

Bourbon Street in August was actually way cooler (temperature and atmosphere) than a late October trip we took some later due to the throngs of people.

3. You are able to get into the most popular restaurants.

Emeril was super-popular back then, but we were able to get a table at Nola no problem for our splurge night.  We had to wait at the bar a bit, but a very nice older couple struck up a conversation with us and insisted on buying our drinks when they heard it was our honeymoon.  The TV show Mad About You was very popular then and they liked that Chad was a filmmaker like Paul Reiser’s character and my name was Jaime like Helen Hunt’s character.  Once we were seated we had a fabulous meal that I still remember fondly.

4. Unbearable is too strong a term for the heat and humidity.

Yes, it was hot and humid.  But beer and frozen drinks flowed plentifully, we got some nice rain one day that was a good break, we found some indoor activities like the aquariam and an IMAX movie, and perhaps my hindsight is rose-colored but I don’t remember once feeling too uncomfortable to enjoy ourselves.