Skip to site content
group travel leader select traveler small market meetings

Baton Rouge: A roaring good time

 


Courtesy Visit Baton Rouge


College Days

Many people know Baton Rouge best as the home of LSU and its powerhouse Tigers sports teams. During a tour of LSU’s campus, groups can see academic and athletic facilities, as well as other points of interest.

“LSU has beautiful architecture and history associated with it,” Guasco said. “You can dine on campus and have an ambassador step on as a guide and give you a tour. They take you through the campus and explain the history and the Italian Renaissance-style buildings.”

College football fans will recognize Tigers Stadium, where the school’s perennial powerhouse team plays its home games. Just outside the stadium is the large, luxurious home of Mike, the Bengal tiger who serves as the team’s live mascot. Mike appears on the field during football games to intimidate the competition, but during the rest of the week, he lives in an enclosure where guests can see him on a campus tour.

Also on campus, fans will find the Jack and Priscilla Andonie Museum, the official repository for LSU athletic history. The 54 displays highlight the Andonies’ personal collection of about 13,000 LSU sports memorabilia. Twenty-four television screens throughout the museum show footage of past and present LSU sporting events.

There are several other museums on campus as well, including university museums of science and natural history.

Party in the Street
If your group includes travelers who love to connect with locals during a tour, consider planning your visit to Baton Rouge to coincide with one of the area’s many special events.

Fall in Baton Rouge means football, and there’s bound to be plenty of excitement around town whenever the Tigers are playing at home. In the spring, a new event called Bayou Country Superfest gives visitors another way to see Tiger Stadium.

“It’s a two-day festival over Memorial Day Weekend that celebrates country music, and it takes place inside Tiger Stadium,” Guasco said. “You’re actually standing on the field. It’s a big deal that they have it there in the stadium because nothing else besides football games is allowed there.”

Earlier in May, Baton Rouge hosts Fest for All, a weekend art and music festival. This event features multiple music stages, street entertainers, art demonstrations and more than 100 artists selling their work downtown. Spring also brings the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, a one-day event in April that celebrates the city’s love of blues music.

Whether you’re into food, history, culture or art, there is perhaps no better time to get to know Baton Rouge than during Mardi Gras. The area’s parades and celebrations take place over the two weekends leading up to Fat Tuesday.

“We have a full-blown Mardi Gras that is very family friendly in nature,” Guasco said. “Our parades are a bit smaller in scale than you would see in New Orleans, but it’s still that same feel. People come out by the thousands, but it’s very easy to get a front-row spot and catch a lot of beads.”

www.visitbatonrouge.com

 

Brian Jewell

Brian Jewell is the executive editor of The Group Travel Leader. In more than a decade of travel journalism he has visited 48 states and 25 foreign countries.