THE ADVENTURE COLLECTIVE® · Independent discovery and booking for outdoor travel
Step into New Orleans’ shadowed past with a walking tour of Storyville, exploring the real lives behind the city’s historic red-light district. Discover influential women and untold stories that reveal a unique cultural layer of the city.
Step into New Orleans’ shadowed past with a walking tour of Storyville, exploring the real lives behind the city’s historic red-light district. Discover influential women and untold stories that reveal a unique cultural layer of the city.
Book with DuPont & Company Tour Experiences, LLC
Verified experiences and guided adventures in the surrounding area.
Operated by DuPont & Company Tour Experiences, LLC · New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana, offers a rich mosaic of history and culture, with its Storyville district standing out as a compelling reminder of the city’s complex past. Vice, Virtue and Negotiable Affection invites travelers to take a deep dive into one of New Orleans’ most fascinating chapters—the hidden history of its sex industry. This immersive walking tour navigates the streets where figures like Lulu White and Norma Wallace lived and worked, illuminating narratives that have shaped the city’s unique social fabric.
The tour focuses on Storyville, once the city’s legalized red-light district established in 1897. Visitors can walk past real locations that hosted brothels, saloons, and jazz venues, set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century architecture. This area’s distinctive Creole cottages and wrought-iron balconies provide a visual link to a bygone era. Beyond the buildings, the stories reveal survival, resilience, and the intersection of race, gender, and economics that defined this overlooked facet of New Orleans history.
What makes this tour especially engaging is the blend of gritty realism and vibrant storytelling. Guides share gripping accounts of the women who challenged social norms, revealing how Storyville was not just a place of vice but a complex community with its own culture. The experience culminates in a visit to a restored former brothel-turned-bar, where guests can reflect and engage in conversation, deepening their appreciation for this layered history.
Vice, Virtue and Negotiable Affection stands out not just for its subject matter but for offering a thoughtful, respectful lens on a controversial legacy. It enriches New Orleans visits by highlighting a chapter often glossed over in traditional city tours, making it a distinctive option for history buffs and curious travelers seeking substance beyond the typical tourist path.
Due to mature themes, this tour is recommended for adults and mature teenagers only.
Yes, the tour is based on extensive research and archives to provide reliable historical accounts.
The tour lasts approximately two hours at a relaxed walking pace.
Advance booking is recommended, especially during peak tourist seasons.
Parts of the tour include uneven sidewalks and steps, so it may not be fully accessible to wheelchair users.
Drinks are not included but are available for purchase at the restored former brothel bar.
DuPont & Company Tour Experiences, LLC is a New Orleans–based tour operator offering guided walking and private tours across the city. The company presents a range of themed experiences that emphasize local history, ancestral narratives, and place-based storytelling. Signature offerings include the Waters of Katrina History Green Tour; French Quarter History and Ghost tours; cemetery walking tours; Garden District visits; witchcraft and coven-focused walks; and customizable private VIP tours. Tours vary in length and format, with options that include 90-minute and two-hour journeys. Guides are local to New Orleans and include storytellers with ancestral ties to neighborhoods and cemeteries visited on tours. That local connection informs tours that reference Storyville, former brothels, jazz and Mardi Gras histories, burial customs at Lafayette Cemetery #1, and the city’s responses to floods and Katrina-era changes. The New Orleans Witches Coven Tour explicitly notes guidance by a licensed tour guide who is also a practicing witch; the Witches of the French Quarter Tour is led by descendants of historical witches. Groups can book standard public tours or reserve private, tailored two-hour and VIP experiences with flexible meeting logistics. Accessibility needs and requests for specific themes or meeting locations can be discussed at booking. DuPont & Company focuses on delivering contextual, locally informed interpretation of New Orleans’ cultural and environmental stories to help visitors connect with the Crescent City.
Book with DuPont & Company Tour Experiences, LLC