What It Is

A nearly two-hour ride in a flat-bottomed, 22-passenger boat through genuine Louisiana marshland.

Where It Is

Slidell, Louisiana

When We Went

June 2022

What We Did

Making very little noise and moving at an easy, Southern pace in our flat-bottomed boat, we journeyed down (or was it up?) the West Pearl River into the Honey Island Swamp, one of the “most natural and untarnished habitats in the United States,” according to Cajun Encounters Tour Co.  We traveled through narrow passages, between dense forests, and past some very beautiful and serene scenes.

How Much We Spent

We paid $120 for all four of us.  Tickets currently cost $39.99 each for visitors ages 12 and up and $28.99 each for kids age 0-11.

How Much Time We Spent There

Around 3 hours.  We arrived at 11:30, a little earlier than necessary (we were coming from Biloxi, Mississippi) for our 12:15 tour and looked around a little afterwards.

What We Liked

We’ve explored a variety of environments on our road trips—majestic mountains, rugged coastlines, vast oceans, dark caverns, otherworldly rock formations, and barren landscapes—but we’d never encountered the murky, marvelous, mysteriousness that is a swamp until we rode with Cajun Encounters in Slidell, Louisiana.  Even though it’s clearly a touristy thing to do, it still felt like a genuine Southern experience.

The day was hot and humid, but our boat was designed in the best way possible for our protection, comfort, and touring pleasure.  It had a full cover, which kept us shaded from the sun when the surrounding trees did not, and it featured two long, back-to-back benches that ran from the front of the boat to the back, which meant that no one was “shorted” on the viewing.  Everyone had a front-row seat to the scenic swamp before us.

The highlight of the tour was, of course, seeing alligators in the wild.  According to Cajun Encounters, visitors can expect to see as many as 20 alligators, ranging in size from one foot to 12 feet, in a single tour on warm days during the peak sighting season, March through October.  

We saw at least a dozen of them.  Some of them came right up to the boat while others watched patiently from a distance.  Looking for alligator eyes and nostrils protruding from the waters was exciting, but it also left us wondering: how many of their “friends” were lying just below the surface or just below our feet, unseen?

We also saw two racoons, who were very happy to eat the marshmallows that our boat captain tossed them, several turtles, and a beautiful Great Blue Heron, whose silhouette in the Spanish-moss-draped trees made for a stunning scene.

But the animals weren’t the only stars of the show.  

The towering trees, swaying grasses, and prolific water vegetation gave the area a warm, inviting feel.  It looked like the kind of swamp Kya fell in love with in the movie, Where The Crawdads Sing.  It was not at all like the dark and scary swamps of horror movies or the lifeless, depressing “Swamps of Sadness” in the movie, The NeverEnding Story, that traumatized me as a child.

Bald cypress trees—tall, gray characters with their “knees” rising from the water—and water tupelos—grayish-brown trees with swollen buttressed bases (traditionally used to carve duck decoys)—surrounded the open waterways.  Yellow pond lilies with their thick, strong stems; round flowers that hover up and out of the water; and lily pads more than a foot long decorated some parts of the swamp while massive carpets of duckweed—a small, floating, bright-green plant—almost completely covered the surface of the water in others.  

And bugs?  Not an issue.  We toured the swamp in the early afternoon, when annoying mosquitoes, gnats, and biting flies are virtually non-existent, thanks to hungry predators like dragonflies, air flow caused by the moving boat, and slow-moving waters.

What We Didn't Like

It was pretty hot and humid, but I’m not sure it would have felt like an authentic swamp if we had been comfortable!

Although I loved seeing the alligators, I wish we could have seen some of the swamp’s other inhabitants, particularly wild boars.  Unfortunately for us, it sounds like the best time to see them is early in the morning or in the fall, when the weather is cooler and the boars are more likely to be out and about.


Was it worth it? 

Yes.  My husband had been on an alligator tour in New Orleans years earlier, but the rest of us had not.  We were tickled to see the beautiful, shaded channels of the swamp and the animals and plants in it.

For more information, visit https://www.cajunencounters.com/.

Did You Know?  If you’re interested in experiencing the swamp, riding in a flat-bottomed jon boat, like what Cajun Encounters uses, is the way to go.  These boats allow visitors to move among the wildlife and plant life of the swamp with the least amount of physical, environmental, and auditory impact.  If you’re simply looking for the thrill of a high-speed ride, then you’ll need to find a company offering airboat rides.

Was It Worth It?
Cajun Encounters Swamp Tour

​Posted September 4, 2026, by Janet Wolfe