Iberia Parish

For fans of spicy cooking the world-over, the mere mention of Iberia Parish conjures the flavor of TABASCO®. The famous pepper sauce is produced on Avery Island, a salt dome rising from the region's typically flat topography. Visitors can tour the TABASCO® factory and the island's Jungle Gardens, a preserve of exotic plant and animal species. At a second salt dome, Jefferson Island, the Rip Van Winkle Gardens and historic Joseph Jefferson mansion offer other beguiling options to explore. In New Iberia proper, the Shadows-on-the-Teche antebellum house museum is a national treasure that tells the story of 19th-century plantation life along Bayou Teche. The region's celebrated Cajun cooking traditions are deliciously showcased at area restaurants and meat markets in towns like Jeanerette and Loreauville and across the countryside. The parish stretches from the Atchafalaya Basin to the Gulf of Mexico, with abundant resources for birding, boating and fishing in between.