Enjoy a panoramic view of Lake Pontchartrain while crossing the Bonnet Carre Spillway (the flood outlet of the Mississippi River) as you travel back in time to Laura Plantation, an operating sugar farm built in 1805 on the great River Road. This tour, which has been called "the best history tour in the U.S.", is based upon 5,000 pages of documents found in the French National Archives and upon Laura's Memories of the Old Plantation Home, in which she details 250 years of true-life stories of the Creole women, slaves and children who lived and worked here.

Laura boasts 11 historic buildings on the National Register, including slave cabins in which the West-African folktales of Compair Lapin (later known as "Br'er Rabbit") were recorded over 140 years ago.

Laura Plantation was awarded the "Top Travel Attraction in Louisiana" by the Louisiana Travel Promotion Association in 2007. It was also listed among "the top 25 most popular house museums in the U.S." by the American Academy of Architecture and Design.