Required Revelry

Recommended site, event or experience:  traditional Mardi Gras in New Orleans

I know it's cheating, because for the vast majority of my life, New Orleans was not technically a travel destination for me, but I really do think that everyone should experience Mardi Gras at least once.  And not the Hollywood version, but real Mardi Gras, especially the Old Line Krewe parades with flambeaux, mounted officers, and stingy throws from the masked riders.

Mardi Gras not only a festival, but it is woven into the New Orleans Social Season.  The Old Line Krewes keep up the old traditions, using the parades as a moving tableaux for the year's theme.  They hold tight to their hard-won parade time slots (a valued commodity because the parade season is only 10 nights long and there is a limit to how many parades can be scheduled on any one night).

Mardi Gras is so much more than the drunken debauchery on Bourbon Street as portrayed by the media and Hollywood.  It's really a rich tradition of taking the pre-Lent festivities from behind the closed doors of private clubs and bringing it out to the people.

Many things calls themselves "the greatest free show on Earth," but Mardi Gras really is, free and open to the public.  As long as you can find a spot along the parade route, you can participate in a tradition 158 years old.  But there is more than that.  If you wake early enough on Mardi Gras Day, you can find the Mardi Gras Indians with their elaborate, hand-made suits and headdresses as they parade through the streets.  And at the same early hour, along the traditional Uptown Route, you can find any of the walking clubs and get paper carnations in exchange for kisses.

There is so much more than the bits the media and Hollywood felt were worth exporting, there is a rich tradition and a living history in the parades and parading organizations.  Everyone should experience that kind of celebration at least once in their lives.  It really is an amazing show, right there in the street for all and sundry to share.

I really can't wait to share it with my dearest -- and we will get there one year.