States: Louisiana
Start near: Baton Rouge (about 40 min to Donaldsonville) · New Orleans (about 1 h 15 min to Grand Isle)
down the longest street in the world
LA 1: End of the Road is a ~110-mile back-roads route from Donaldsonville to Grand Isle on LA 1 and LA 308, driven in 1–2 days, that stays off US 90 four-lane through the Gulf Coast.
Bayou Lafourche was once a mouth of the Mississippi, and the unbroken 100-mile ribbon of settlement down both banks earned it the nickname the longest street in the world. LA 1 and LA 308 run it as a pair, one on each bank, through sugar country and shrimp country to Leeville's sinking tombs and Grand Isle, Louisiana's only inhabited barrier island. This is the road to watch the coast disappearing in real time.
📍 Bayou Lafourche corridor markers run both banks; land-loss interpretation thickens below Golden Meadow.
Down from the river through cane fields and the bayou's old plantation towns, Madewood gleaming on the 308 bank.
The river parishes' Black history told at the bayou's head: free towns, root doctors, and the country's first Black mayor elected here in 1868.
An 1846 Greek Revival pile on the LA 308 bank, one of the bayou's grandest survivors.
The Creole cottage of a chief justice, interpreting the whole bayou's story, including the 1887 Thibodaux massacre of striking cane workers.
Lockport, Larose, Cut Off, Galliano: one continuous waterfront town where shrimp boats park like pickups.
Trawlers tied up along the highway shoulder; the blessing of the fleet still opens shrimp season here.
Leeville's cemetery in the marsh, the elevated toll road over open water, and the island at the end of everything.
Tombs subsiding into open water where a farming town stood a century ago. Coastal land loss, made unmistakably literal.
The state's only inhabited barrier island: birding fallouts in April, the Tarpon Rodeo in July, houses on ever-taller stilts.
LA 1: End of the Road is about 110 miles and takes 1–2 days at a back-roads pace.
It runs from Donaldsonville to Grand Isle.
It follows LA 1 and LA 308.
It avoids US 90 four-lane, using LA 1 and LA 308 instead.
6 stops are mapped, including River Road African American Museum, Madewood, E.D. White Historic Site, Golden Meadow shrimp fleet and Leeville Cemetery.
The Great River Road, Southern Act (6 days).
The atlas’s seasonal note for this route: “The Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo (late July) is billed as America's oldest fishing tournament; book the island early.”
The Great River Road, Southern Act (6 days)
Connects with: Bayou Teche & the Cajun Prairie · River Road & the Felicianas · US 90: The Creole Coast
More in the Gulf Coast: US 90: The Creole Coast · The Forgotten Coast · Bayou Teche & the Cajun Prairie · River Road & the Felicianas · US 90: The Florida Backbone · US 90: Rice & Rails · Cane River & El Camino Real · Poverty Point & the Delta Parishes · Alabama's Coastal Connection