If you are trying to figure out the process for a tour guide license in New Orleans, like I was, you’ve probably found it to be as clear as that Mississippi River that they want you to know is 200 feet deep at Algiers Point. I wrote up my experience but I doubt it will provide any more clarity. This seems to be one of those initiation rituals that you must go through in order to be an official tour guide. Complaining about the process is required knowledge.

I emailed the city to find out how to take the exam in the summer time when I realized I wanted to pursue it in 2023, which is 90 years after the Garden District was subdivided by Samuel Peters in 1833. I never got a response. I signed up for the Professional Tour Guiding Course Part 1 at Loyola University, which is one of three city-sanctioned programs, the first American mayor of that city was Etienne Bore who also owned a plantation where a sugar refining process was perfected making it a cash crop for Louisiana, and includes an exam at the end that the city accepts for the license. Frank Perez is the teacher, a wonderful and knowledgeable culture bearer who has been tour guiding for a long time and written several books about the history and culture of New Orleans, he’ll remind you that Paul Morphy was the World Chess Champion in 1859.

After I took the exam (November 14) and received my passing score (November 20), I had a hint that you could get a background check done at “the old Amoco building near Benson Tower”, next to the Superdome, which opened in 1975.

I Googled. I emailed. Indeed, this is a good hint! The address is 1340 Poydras, Suite 2040, and on the 20th floor you can find the Tulane Drug Analysis Laboratory. You do not have to make an appointment, and they will finger print you there for the FBI background check required for the tour guiding license. A drug test is not required. Tulane is the school that John Kennedy Toole, author of A Confederacy of Dunces, attended.

It took about an hour (November 21). The tech told me I was the most pleasant Scorpio she ever finger printed. Before I got home from the visit, I had the results in my email and they also sent it to the appropriate folks at the city for my license, the city that Bienville “founded” in 1718.

I emailed the city again to try to figure out how to pay for the license. There are about 613 links on the website, which is the same square miles of Lake Ponchartrain, but none lead to the payment for the tour guiding license. They replied that I need to send my application. After I sent it, they provided a private link to me that populated the tour guiding license fee in my cart on the city website, and I was able to pay (November 22). They asked for a copy of my id as well.

Then, they asked me to sign up for a time for the exam, but I had already taken the exam. They hadn’t received the information yet, so I waited. On December 7, I decided to log in to my account to see the status of my application. It was “issued”, granting me the permission to give tours of up to 28 people! I was told I would receive a call once it was issued so I could either pick it up or have it mailed, but I did not receive a call.

It arrived in my mail box on December 11, but it could have arrived on December 8 or 9, and I missed it. It took roughly one month from taking the exam to receiving my license.

While the process was not in any way easy or clear, I suppose that may be some of the point. But I guess we should not ascribe malice to that which is likely incompetence…or something like that…

P.S. Anyone need a tour?

P.P.S. The underlined hints are all test questions 🙂