Traveling Pair, Alex and Luke, Stay at Renaissance

By R Life, posted Jul 26th 2010 at 1:54PM

In case you haven’t heard of the dynamic and awesome duo, Alex and Luke, here’s a brief summary of what the couple does:  they travel around all of North America and power their fun via social networking. The pair chose to stay at the Renaissance New Orleans Arts Hotel while recently in New Orleans, and they even shouted out the place in their July 19^th video. We couldn’t help but get a hold of the nomads and ask them some questions about their NOLA experience.

Read about it after the jump…

Looks like you guys are having a blast this summer. New Orleans is one of our favorite cities – how did New Orleans rank for you?

We absolutely loved New Orleans. Both of us have been really looking forward to this particular city since we started on this trip in March, but sometimes it can be dangerous to have really high expectations of a place before you explore it. We heard great things about this city – about the people, the music, the culture – and it certainly lived up to all of the hype. We will be back – if for nothing else but the beignets!

You stayed at the Renaissance Arts Hotel in New Orleans. What did you think? Did anything about the hotel stand out?

The Renaissance Arts Hotel was the perfect home base for us while we were in town. It was in a great area full of restaurants and wine bars and just moments away from the colorful French Quarter, which was nice because it was close to the action but not quite so busy. We absolutely loved that it was built in a historic warehouse, and that it has incorporated the arts theme from the surrounding neighborhood into the concept and design of the hotel. The whole place had a very artsy, trendy vibe, which is something we love. As Canadians, we found the heat in New Orleans to be debilitating at times, so the pool that looked out over the city was the perfect place to cool off and relax.

If you were going to recommend some things to do for those traveling through New Orleans, what would you recommend? Did you drink at any awesome bars, eat at amazing restaurants, go to the market?

Everything we do on our trip is suggested by one of our followers at alexandluke.com. We don’t follow typical travel guides because it is our goal to see this continent in a new way, using social media technologies to inform our explorations and to bend the rules of what it means to be a tourist. By doing this, we often experience cities the way a local would and bypass overhyped, overpriced tourist traps.

When we arrived in New Orleans, we asked everyone what we should be doing while there. What was the dominant response? To try the beignets at Cafe du Monde. We were also led to Creole Creamery in The Garden District, which had some deliciously creative ice cream flavors, and a memorable meal at Arnaud’s on Bourbon.

Oh, and we went to a $10 wine tasting at the Wine Institute of New Orleans, which was located right next door to the hotel! W.I.N.O. is a must-visit when in town. It might not be in the touristy French Quarter, but its a great place to spend an evening and taste some great new wines!

Every road trip comes with lessons learned. Any advice from the road you can give our road-tripping guests?

We have picked up many skills and travel tips on the four months we have been on the road, most of which involve finding new ways to use social media technologies to positively influence our travel experiences. With the help of these technologies we have figured out a way to see both popular tourist destinations and the more random unheard-of towns in a very productive and exciting way because we ask the masses on Twitter, Facebook, and Gowalla what they think is worth doing. We figure that people who are familiar with these places must know better than us, so why not put everything in their hands? It has worked well so far. Bottom line, we have learned to not be afraid to make connections with new people, whether online or off, when we travel to a new place. It can mean the difference between a dull day, or the most memorable.

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