Internet offers travel tips for visiting New Orleans

You've read about the parties and parades during Mardi Gras, but New Orleans is worth a visit at any time of year.

Get an idea of what there is to see and do, and learn where to find it, by trolling through a few informative sites on the Web.

Take a quick look at the Visitor's Guide at the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau -- www.neworleanscvb.com -- for a searchable database of hotels and restaurants. And unlike many cities, here the Activities category includes cooking schools. Look under General Information for basic travel tips and history, and for a Family Pages section that says New Orleans isn't just for grownups anymore.

Not just for grownups? There's more at New Orleans Kids -- www.neworleanskids.com -- including kid-friendly tours and cruises.

Take a few minutes to read the feature articles at Best of New Orleans -- www.bestofneworleans.com -- which also has a set of useful maps.

Experience New Orleans -- www.experienceneworleans. com -- offers a Sights directory that includes links to high points such as the Riverwalk Marketplace, the riverside shopping and dining center, and Cities of the Dead, the distinctive aboveground cemeteries.

And all visitors must go to the French Quarter -- www.frenchquarter.com -- for a taste of the area's sights and sounds.

Look up links to the area's major plantations at Explore New Orleans -- /www.explore -new-orleans.com -- including Oak Alley, built in 1839. Don't ignore their other categories of information, including Voodoo.

You can't go to New Orleans without spending some quality time getting acquainted with the area's food and music.

Go back to Explore New Orleans and click on Music for links to sources of information on clubs and concerts, plus music festivals. Next year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is set for April 26-May 5. Or visit Louisiana Radio -- www.louisianaradio.com/lmo/festivals/index.html -- to learn about music festivals ranging from Baton Rouge Blues to Swamp Pop.

If you want to pick just one Web site to listen to, try WWOZ -- www.wwoz.org -- the radio station run by the Jazz and Heritage Foundation.

Care to feast your senses on the area's Creole and Cajun culture? Visit the Gumbo Pages -- www.gumbopages.com -- and immerse yourself in dozens of links to information on restaurants, cooking schools, recipes, festivals, music, bands, radio stations, literature and more. Good site to explore on a cold, rainy afternoon, but not if you're on a diet or if your computer has no speakers.

Focus on Cajun food and music with the help of LouisianaCajun -- www.louisianacajun.com -- where Sights & Places provides a page of links to southern Louisiana photo collections. You can even check out links about crawfish.

In case that isn't enough, try a few of the links collected by Tony Chachere's Creole Foods -- www.tonychachere.com/fun--links.html -- another Web site good for filing part of a rainy afternoon.