Tracing the bends in the Mississippi River away from the tourist-crazy French Quarter can yield great benefits during a trip to New Orleans. The Irish Channel, the Garden District, the Bywater in the opposite direction, these are all neighborhoods meandering away from the tourist magnet in the center of the city, affording more local and less crowded experiences. At the border of the Uptown district lies Carrollton, itself an outpost along the Mississippi where the street cars start to end and the city starts to transform.

And that kind of extended distance away from the French Quarter has meant that countless bars and the buildings they inhabit have been allowed to develop untouched, timeless institutions built to serve the residential areas they’re embedded within. There may be no better example, and perhaps no better dive bar in America, than Snake & Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge, the dive bar I would choose if I had to pick one bar within New Orleans to call home.

But there is diversity here too, Carrollton’s proximity to Tulane drawing a younger crowd and a New Orleans-style version of a classic college bar, like Redd’s Uptilly Tavern. These are parts of the city that filter out most of the accidental visitors, instead creating the feeling of truly local drinking at these enduringly local establishments.