A tour of Cajun Country is all about rumbling down remote Louisiana two-lanes in search of Cajun culture, a colorful fusion of ancient French, Scottish, and German served up fresh in restaurants, theaters, and old-time dance halls.

Day One: New Orleans to Napoleonville (91 miles)

Head west out of the Crescent City on U.S. 90 and soon the traffic-clogged highway turns to sinuous, sleepy country roads. On tiny Route 307 going toward Kraemer, the road winds through duckweed-covered swamp that laps hungrily at its edges. Start your trip with a swamp tour, which is obligatory in these parts. The tiny town of Kraemer is home to Zam’s Bayou Swamp Tours, where a guide will regale you with Cajun lore (or just gossip about the eccentric local characters) while captaining a skiff in search of alligators. You might not spot live lizards in the swamp, but Zam’s yard, a charnel house of future pocketbooks, belts, and shoes, will not disappoint. His alligator business—harvesting the creatures’ skulls as well as their skins—is the town’s largest industry.

From Kraemer, follow Route 307 to Route 304 and pick up scenic Route 308 north. These country roads wind past cane fields, the occasional plantation, and old Creole homes with long front galleries for summer sitting out of the sun’s heat.

At Napoleonville, check into Madewood, an 1846 Greek Revival plantation house that has been gloriously restored and furnished with English antiques and artwork. The elegant beds have either full or half canopies—take your pick. Dinner in the formal dining room will make you feel like the lord of your own manor, and the gracious innkeepers are happy to let you have the run of the entire house. (Ms. Naomi Marshall, the owner’s charming mother, spins an entertaining yarn; ask her about her friendship with Richard Nixon and settle down for a great story.)

If you prefer to venture out for dinner, take Route 308 to Donaldsonville and try Lafitte’s Landing at Bittersweet Plantation. Chef John Folse’s Cajun-Creole menu rivals the best New Orleans has to offer—“Death by Gumbo” is especially good.

Day Two: Napoleonville to Lake Charles (292 miles)

Follow Route 308 up to Donaldsonville, then go north on Highway 1 to Baton Rouge and west on Route 10 to Lafayette. If you’d like to explore the history behind Cajun music (or at least a reasonably authentic re-creation of it), tour Lafayette’s Acadian Village. This restored Cajun settlement was conjured from buildings that date to the 1800s and features interesting exhibits on Acadian arts and culture.

Acadians, or Cajuns, were French immigrants expelled from Nova Scotia when the British wrested the island away from France in the eighteenth century. The forced displacement, known among Cajuns as Le Grand Dérangement, inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 poem “Evangeline.” The homes, stores, and churches of some of these same displaced Acadians are on display in the village.

As you drive west out of Lafayette toward Crowley, the bayous and sugarcane yield to rice country, with the road shimmering amid table-flat fields of yellowy-green rice plants. Crowley—the Rice Capital of Louisiana—has the Rice Theater, which hosts gospel, country, and Cajun music concerts on weekends (call 337-788-4116 to learn what’s playing).

Lake Charles is 50 miles from Crowley by interstate, or six times that far and a world away via routes 13, 82, and 27, which take you down into the depths of Vermilion and Cameron parishes. This is country in which the same front yard will hold a satellite dish and a horse-driven well pump. And suddenly out of the sprawling flatland will appear a jewel of a town. Gueydan is one of these (out Route 14)—with cast-iron streetlamps marching down the middle of a broad, oak-shaded boulevard.

Here, people farm and ranch rather than fish, and the tiny roadhouses you pass have western names: the OK Corral and the Cowboy’s Hangout, the latter with a cockpit beside the bar where roosters commit apparently legal pea-brained mayhem on Sunday afternoons.

Farther south, along the Gulf Coast, watch as the shore becomes a hot immensity of wetland, silent except for the hum of the insects in the reeds. Water hyacinths create vast, fragrant carpets of lavender across the bayous, and egrets pose like stark, slim white vases here and there. Overhead, purposeful pelicans work their way west with the crank-winged look of latter-day pterodactyls. This—and virtually all of coastal Louisiana—is a landscape unlike anything else you’ll see in America. Just off Route 27, south of Lake Charles, stop at the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. Its 196 square miles serve as a temporary home to wintering and migrating waterfowl. If the scaliest thing you saw at Zam’s was merely a bag-to-be, consider walking the refuge’s one-and-a-half-mile Marsh Trail, which might yield a glimpse of live gators.

There’s no midweek music in Lake Charles, but there are crabs, particularly at the Seafood Palace on Enterprise Boulevard. Spend the night at the Eddy House, a bed-and-breakfast of obsessively detailed charm. Breakfast here is a study in silver and porcelain perfection.

Day Three: Lake Charles to Eunice (128 miles)

Head north on Route 27 toward DeQuincy and the countryside changes rapidly and radically, from maritime wetlands to piedmontlike vegetation and pasturage between stands of big-piney forest. From DeQuincy, take U.S. 190 east to the small town of Eunice. Lafayette is supposedly the capital of Cajun music, largely because it is a city and has several prosperous, heavily touristed restaurants where Cajun fiddling is served up with the jambalaya and filé gumbo. But for traditionalists, Eunice is the real Cajun core. Basile, Opelousas, Lewisburg, Mamou, and Ville Platte, all major Cajun-music towns, are within 20 miles of here.

Eunice is the site of the weekly Rendez Vous des Cajuns radio broadcast (a Cajun take on the Grand Ole Opry). It also has the Savoy Music Center, owned by two of the genre’s great performers and preservationists, Marc and Ann Savoy. He’s a famed accordion-maker, she’s a guitarist and vocalist, and if you time your trip to arrive on a Saturday morning, you might be lucky enough to find them jamming à la Cajun in the shop. You’ll also find plenty of their recordings to take away with you as souvenirs.

Stop for a bite at Mama’s Fried Chicken, which, ironically, is famous for its crawfish étouffée. Mama’s is near the town’s Best Western, but a considerably more cozy option is Potier’s Prairie Cajun Inn, a restored 1920s hospital. The comfortable rooms have Cajun decor, and the Liberty Theater, home of the Rendez Vous des Cajuns, is next door.

Before you call it a day, be sure to catch zydeco night at Slim’s Y-KiKi, just north of Opelousas (an easy jaunt from Eunice via U.S. 190). Slim’s is an unmarked shed of a roadhouse—the best signpost is probably the Piggly Wiggly across the street. Cajun music draws from French, Scottish, and German traditions, but zydeco takes it several steps further, mixing in African, Caribbean, and blues influences. If you’ve never heard zydeco before, don’t leave Louisiana without spending at least one evening at Slim’s. (Although you’ll want to applaud, don’t: It’s not considered cool to clap for the band at a zydeco club.)

Day Four: Eunice to Breaux Bridge (59 miles)

From Eunice, drive north on Route 13 to Mamou to breakfast on beer (root beer for the driver) at Fred’s Lounge, an oasis of music, dancing, and parked pickups. A shack about the size of three house trailers, Fred’s hosts a live Saturday-morning radio broadcast of some of the state’s best Cajun bands. The doors open at 8 a.m., and the party lasts until about two in the afternoon. (Note the signs warning patrons to refrain from standing on the jukebox.) You’ll be perfectly comfortable on the dance floor here, or anywhere else in Cajun country, as long as you can two-step, waltz, and jitterbug—the three moves you need in order to learn Cajun dancing. Head to Fred’s in the morning, but reserve some energy for the rest of the day’s festivities.

Head back to Eunice for the thriving Saturday night Rendez Vous des Cajuns radio show, which at $5 is easily the best entertainment value in the country. It’s worth several times that just to see the splendid interior of the 600-seat Liberty Theater, a classic small-town vaudeville and film palace from the 1920s, but you’ll also get two hours of live music—and dancing, if you’re up for it—by some of the best Cajun and zydeco bands you’re ever likely to hear. The show’s emcee swings back and forth between French, English, and a uniquely Cajun brand of Franglais.

The show ends at around 7:30 p.m., so hustle down Route 13 and east on I-10 to the town of Breaux Bridge, outside Lafayette. At Mulate’s, a local institution, the dishes include fried alligator, oysters, and the house special, catfish. Great Cajun bands play nightly here, and you can sweat off dinner by joining the crowds (including the staff) on the well-worn dance floor. Be sure to pin your business card to the ceiling or the walls—everyone else does.

No need for a designated driver, provided you stay at the Bayou Cabins, a stone’s throw (or an alligator’s crawl) from Mulate’s. Many of the cabins were brought from historic Cajun settlements. Request either No. 9 or No. 7, which have screened back porches that overlook Bayou Teche.

Still going strong? Make an appearance at Breaux Bridge’s La Poussiere, one of the classic Cajun Saturday-night dance halls. Walter Mouton and the Scott Playboys have a long-standing Saturday-night tradition of performing here. The night is young, just as it always seems to be in Cajun country.

Pit Stops

Breaux Bridge

Bayou Cabins (337-332-6158; bayoucabins.com; cabins, $50–$105). Mulate’s (337-332-4648; entrées, $12–$16). La Poussiere (337-332-1721).

Donaldsonville

Lafitte’s Landing (225-473-1232; entrées, $19–$28).

Eunice

Potier’s Prairie Cajun Inn (337-457-0440; potiers.net; doubles, $75). Mama’s Fried Chicken (337-457-9978; entrées, $7–$11). Liberty Theater (337-457-7389). Savoy Music Center (337-457-9563).

Kraemer

Zam’s Bayou Swamp Tours (985-633-7881; 90-minute tours, $15).

Lafayette

Acadian Village (337-981-2364; acadianvillage.org).

Lake Charles

Eddy House B&B (337-436-3980, fax -494-3947; doubles, $95). Seafood Palace (337-433-9293; entrées, $6–$15). Mamou Fred’s Lounge (337-468-5411).

Napoleonville

Madewood Plantation House (800-375-7151; madewood.com; doubles, $225).