Life was one big party during Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street in New Orlean's French Quarter. Hurricane Katrina's devastation has changed all that. Now the city needs our help.

Editor's Note
Reaching Out to New Orleans

We’ve covered many unique places in the pages of Go World Travel Magazine — and New Orleans is one of them. The Louisiana city was the birthplace of jazz, as well as a stronghold for rhythm and blues music.

New Orleans’s culture — a curious blend of French Creole and Afro-Caribbean — made it a place like no other. So it’s no wonder that New Orleans has drawn millions of visitors from around the world who came to enjoy its cuisine, history, culture — and even its wilder side.

The arrival of Hurricane Katrina has devastated this popular destination. Even now, I’m not sure if I should refer to the Big Easy (as New Orleans is called) in the present tense or in the past. The immense damage and contamination that resulted from the flooding means that New Orleans’s future is now in question. Can the city be rebuilt in its present location? No one knows yet.

The drowning of New Orleans has changed thousands of lives. Even in a wealthy country like the United States, poverty is an everyday reality. New Orleans has many residents who live below the poverty line, and they are among Katrina’s victims.

The images of New Orleans that now flow across our computer screens and TVs are heartbreaking. It's especially poignant for travelers who have visited this Louisiana town. We’ve enjoyed the city first-hand — stopping for café au lait and beignets (French doughnuts) at Café Du Monde, meandering through the narrow alleys of the French Quarter or whooping it up during the fêtes at Madri Gras.

Our hearts go out to all those on the American Gulf Coast who have suffered from Katrina’s wrath. From a traveler's perspective, we're especially mindful of our friends in the tourism industry — the bed-and-breakfast owners who made guests feel so welcome, the tourism representative who explained New Orleans’s bewildering fascination with voodoo, or the waitress who happily served up yet another bowl of gumbo. Many of these people depend on travelers for their very livelihoods, and those travelers, at least for the moment, are gone.

New Orleans and other towns along the Gulf Coast have given many of us a part of themselves, whether through music, culinary traditions or by simply sharing their communities with a weary traveler.

Now it’s time for us to give back. Please join us in donating to the Red Cross or the charity of your choice.

Warm regards,

Janna Graber
Managing Editor
Go World Travel