Lake Fausse Pointe State Park

At Lake Fausse Pointe State Park, the waterfront cabins have no road access. You paddle to your front door. The park sprawls across 6,000 acres of cypress-tupelo swamp at the western edge of the Atchafalaya Basin, and the boat-in accommodations sit on stilts over black water, facing either cove or swamp. Cabins book months in advance. The land was carved from what was once Attakapas territory, later French colonial holdings, then a 19th-century sugar plantation. Now it shelters some of the last significant old-growth bald cypress stands left in the Atchafalaya Basin — ancient trees rising from water so dark it swallows light. Twenty-two miles of marked canoe trails wind through cypress-tupelo corridors. At night the sky opens with virtually no light pollution, and you can paddle under stars so dense they blur together. Wikipedia reports the park is home to whitetail deer, black bears, cottonmouth snakes, armadillos, alligators, and bobcats. Canoe and kayak rentals are available at the park office, and several primitive canoe-to campsites sit along the waterways — some accessible only by boat, others reachable by hiking deeper into the swamp interior. The park also offers RV sites, hike-to campsites, and three marked hiking trails that allow biking. An interpretive center provides exhibits on the plants and animals found in the Basin. This is one of the few places in Louisiana where you sleep surrounded by old-growth cypress with no engine sound but your own paddle stroke.