Mobile

Mobile needs 1 day: touring the Mobile Carnival Museum, dedicated to the history of Mardi Gras, celebrated in the city since 1703 -over a century before New Orleans-, and visiting the USS Alabama battleship, now a floating museum in the bay, the same afternoon. March-May and October-November bring the mildest weather, avoiding the humid summer heat and hurricane peak. It's inexpensive for the US South. It's the real birthplace of Mardi Gras in the United States, celebrated here by French settlers since 1703, long before the tradition became famous in New Orleans, though the city gets a fraction of its better-known neighbor's tourism.