Covington

Crossing Lake Pontchartrain on the causeway, twenty-four miles of low bridge with nothing but gray water on either side, is disorienting enough that arriving in Covington feels like stepping into a different state entirely. The town is shaded and green, built where the Bogue Falaya and Tchefuncte rivers meet, and it has the manicured, artsy calm of a place that decided early on to lean into galleries and gardens rather than nightlife. Lia, who finds New Orleans a little overwhelming after a few days, called Covington “New Orleans’s quiet cousin who reads a lot.”

Columbia Street and the art scene

Columbia Street is Covington’s spine, a few blocks of antique dealers, independent bookshops, and studios housed in century-old buildings with deep porches. The St. Tammany Art Association runs a gallery in a converted 1908 house that rotates local painters and sculptors monthly, and we spent a slow hour there before wandering to a coffee shop that doubled as a used record store. Trailhead Farmers Market sets up on Saturdays near the old rail depot, and the vendors seemed to know half the customers by name.

The Tammany Trace

The best afternoon we spent in Covington was on bikes, riding a stretch of the Tammany Trace, a paved rail-trail built on an old railroad bed that runs thirty-one miles through St. Tammany Parish, shaded almost the entire way by pine and live oak. We pedaled out toward Abita Springs, stopping at the Abita Brewing tasting room for a cold beer we felt we’d earned, then turned back as the light went long and gold through the trees. It’s flat, easy riding, and one of the few places in Louisiana where you can genuinely forget you’re near a major city.

Getting There

Covington is about forty minutes north of New Orleans across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, with Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) the closest airport. A car is the easiest way in, though once you’re downtown, Columbia Street and the Trace are both entirely walkable or bikeable.