Hotel at a Glance: Holiday Inn Express & Suites Picayune

Located 1 mile from Picayune’s lively downtown, Holiday Inn Express & Suites Picayune give you easy access to Cajun restaurants and an Amtrak station with service to New Orleans. The hotel’s contemporary guest rooms boast 32-inch flat-screen TVs, microwaves, refrigerators, and free WiFi. Breakfast is also free—you can nosh on eggs, bacon, and pastries.

• Go swimming in the hotel’s heated indoor pool, or drive about an hour to get to the Gulf Coast beaches.
• Perk up with free coffee available 24 hours a day.
• Nearby attraction: Crosby Arboretum is just down the road; its walking trails take you through the native flora of local ecosystems, including savanna, bog, and meadow.
• Time to New Orleans: 50 minutes by car and 80 minutes on the train

Picayune, Mississippi: Bayou Wildlife 50 Miles from New Orleans

The Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge is practically in Picayune’s backyard. You can hike, canoe, and fish in the refuge’s hardwood forests and bayous, while keeping an eye out for the endangered and threatened species that live here: ringed-sawback turtles, American alligators, and Gulf sturgeon. Many species of neo-tropical birds and the occasional bald eagle may pass by, too. If you want to stick closer to home, take a stroll through Crosby Arboretum. Maintained by Mississippi State University, it contains trees and plants native to the Pearl River drainage basin. Meanwhile, Picayune’s charming downtown is just a couple of miles from here. Visit the town’s Lower Valley Transportation Museum and war monuments, then catch an Amtrak train into New Orleans, just 50 miles south.

Historical buildings with intricate wrought-iron balconies line the narrow streets of New Orleans’s French Quarter, right in the middle of the city. Here, street musicians often fill the air with jazz music, their trombones and tubas swinging back and forth. Just off the Jackson Square park and near the towering St. Louis Cathedral, the legendary Café Du Monde serves beignets under heaping piles of powdered sugar, as well as cups of iced or steaming café au lait. And then there’s Bourbon Street, where neon lights advertise frozen cocktails and gaudy strip clubs and crowds gather along 13 city blocks.

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