Stayed for a day or two during a road trip to Texas in summer 1984. Have no memory of it but I’ve been shown pictures.
January 1985, for a “reenactment” of the 1815 battle. Also my 30th birthday.
I began doing JazzFest right after Katrina. Try for every year, but have missed a couple due to circumstances.
I go to New Orleans once or twice a year to see my sister who lives there. It’s only about a 3-hour drive.
I have not been to Bourbon Street since 1977, however.
Astor Crowne Plaza.
I was there last summer, for a conference. The same organization (American Library Association) held their conference there in June '06, the first major conf to go back after Katrina, and that was the last time I was there before htis.
I’ve visited NOLA five times. Love the architecture in the French Quarter. No one makes beignets like Café du Monde–scrumptious! I adore the Pharmacy Museum* and never have enough time to see all the other museums. I hope the next time I go I’ll be able to visit the zoo.
*Last time I visited, it was obvious they were hurting for funds. 
Please visit it the next time you’re in the F.Q.: http://www.pharmacymuseum.org/
Sent from my TRS-80 via CompuServe.
I had to check the map to be sure what was wrong with my memory, and it was I-12 we took to Lafayette and not the stretch of I-10 that does cut through NOLA.
Because somebody might figure out you once visited Shreveport?
Diggit! Stoning offense.
This year was my 16th annual visit to New Orleans for Jazzfest; I first visited the Crescent City for Fest in 1997, and have been flown back down each & every year since.
I have been lucky enough to have spent time visiting (what most people would consider) some of the finest cities in the world, including San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Austin, Chicago, Montreal, New York City, Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, Brussels, Copenhagen, Prague, Sydney and many others, but there is something about New Orleans that captures my imagination like nowhere else on Earth…
I get a similar feeling in Charleston and Savannah.
1993ish for the American Society for Cell Biology conference.
Sure, but how are you going to make that meaningful? The arbitrary and uneven increments of the poll choices make it pretty difficult. All it really says is that Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, etc. are out of that range, and that Mobile probably isn’t a big tourism or national-level business city.
I agree. It took seeing more variety to the responses for me to see that the simplistic explanation was barely more than silly.
The other follow-up poll for which city is a better try than New Orleans for getting more Dopers in or near, is also asking for more meaningful increments.
But even that is mostly silly: you’ve either been there or not! How close you got without actually being there is barely relevant.
The closest is about 300 miles, when I went to a football game in Oxford, Mississippi.
Better safe than sorrry!
Ahh! 1984 World’s Fair! Kangaroo hides & opals at the Australian Pavilion. Kangaroo hides stink!
The closest I’ve been is Dauphin Island, AL. Google maps puts that at 150 miles by car, but I don’t know the distance as the crow flies. I’m going to guess it’s still over 100.
Lived there from November 1999 until June 2010. Uptown, in Carrollton, near the universities, zoo, and Riverbend. Would still be living there save for my job. My company closed their office there and we had to move. Still missing the good things and the great people. I don’t think that I could live there again, though.