Baja Norte with Project Por Amor

10:00 am ~ Depart for Whitney Plantation

Embark on one of America's most culturally significant drives as we travel the legendary River Road, following the meandering curves of the mighty Mississippi River through what's known as "Plantation Alley." This historic 45-mile journey from New Orleans to Whitney Plantation takes you along the same route that 19th-century steamboat passengers would have admired from the water—past a landscape that once boasted an astonishing concentration of wealth, with one-third of America's millionaires living along this very corridor in the 1850s. As we wind through the fertile river parishes, you'll witness the complex layers of Louisiana's history: magnificent live oak alleys draped in Spanish moss that frame surviving antebellum mansions, expansive sugarcane fields that still stretch to distant cypress swamps, and the industrial reality of modern Louisiana where petrochemical plants now occupy land once devoted to plantation agriculture. Your guide will help you read this evolving landscape, explaining how the rich alluvial soil created by countless Mississippi River floods made this the agricultural heart of the antebellum South, while pointing out landmarks that tell the story of how this region shaped American history, culture, and economics. The drive itself becomes a moving classroom, preparing you to understand the full context of what you'll experience at Whitney Plantation—America's first museum dedicated exclusively to the history of slavery.