Road trip to a blue bayou in Louisiana

A road trip to a blue bayou in Louisiana ranks 2nd on the list of best extreme outdoor adventures in America. At 600,000 acres the Atchafalaya Basin is America’s largest river swamp — a place so big that when I-10 was built in the early 1970s to make the region more accessible, the challenges of extending a road across soggy land made this stretch of interstate one of the most costly ever. Lazing from New Orleans to Lafayette, this nearby drive leads visitors into that lush, liquid world of slightly exotic surprises: French accents, abundant wildlife, and flavorful food and music found nowhere else in America. The historic Maison Madeleine B&B has fantastic food and is tucked away amidst Spanish-moss-cloaked oak trees on Lake Martin, in Louisiana's Cajun country.

Few places in the U.S. feel as “abroad” as Acadiana, where french toast is called pain perdu, alligators and egrets lurk and flit, and Cajun music is on surround sound. The road trip specialist All Roads North will curate a six-day itinerary that includes: a stay on the shores of Lake Martin at the Maison Madeleine, a gorgeously atmospheric two-bedroom Cajun home from the 1840s that’s now a B&B where James Beard-nominated chefs come to cook; kayak tours of the mazelike waterways of the vast Atchafalaya Basin; seaplane excursions; and visits to Breaux Bridge, New Iberia, and Jefferson Island, the heartland of the Cajun way of life. End, if you wish, in New Orleans, with a stay at the new Chloe, a 14-room Queen Anne–style mansion turned hotel.

Location: Baton Rouge, Los Angeles, United States