The Creole Nature Trail: Lake Charles to Cameron Prairie
About 86 miles from Lake Charles through Sulphur and Hackberry to Holly Beach, Cameron and the Cameron Prairie refuge, on the Creole Nature Trail.
The Route at a Glance
The Creole Nature Trail became an All-American Road in 2002 and was Louisiana's only one until the Great River Road received the same designation in 2021. It began in 1975 as a route of more than 117 miles, and a 1993 extension to the Texas line brought it to about 140. This drive takes 86 miles, about two and a half hours without stops, from Lake Charles by I-10 and US-90 to Sulphur, south on LA-27 through Hackberry and Holly Beach to Cameron, across the Cameron ferry, and east on LA-27 and LA-82 to the Cameron Prairie refuge. Lake Charles & the Creole Nature Trail covers the country.
Calcasieu is an Atakapa name. The parish was created on March 24, 1840, and the name is traced to an Atakapa leader, Katkosh Yok, "Crying Eagle," whom the French recorded as Quelqueshue. The Imperial Calcasieu Museum tells the parish's history; in 1860 it counted 5,928 people, 1,171 of them enslaved. The Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu opened its new building on April 17, 2026, and The Timber Workers' Trial tells how an interracial union was tried in Lake Charles.
Creole Nature Trail Adventure Point in Sulphur, free and open since 2015, is the western gateway. From there LA-27 runs south through farmland and marsh. Sabine National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1937, covers 124,511 acres, the largest coastal marsh refuge on the Gulf, and its Wetland Walkway is a 1.5-mile loop across freshwater marsh. Hurricane Rita on September 24, 2005, damaged the refuge's office and visitor center beyond repair. LA-27 reaches the Gulf at Holly Beach, which the Adventure Point guides name as a place to collect shells, and LA-27 follows the shore east to the ferry.
The Cameron ferry crosses the Calcasieu River. The state lists eastbound crossings as free and keeps a ferry status page, worth checking before you go. Beyond it, the Cameron Parish Courthouse was built in 1937 with Public Works Administration money. On June 27, 1957, Hurricane Audrey came ashore with a surge of about 20 feet, and hundreds of people took refuge in the courthouse; one count puts 371 of the more than 400 dead in and around Cameron. Hurricane Rita brought a surge of 17.8 feet in 2005 and destroyed most of the town, and the town's population fell from 1,965 in 2000 to 315 in 2020.
LA-27 then turns north to Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, the first refuge designated under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Its 9,621 acres are freshwater marsh, coastal prairie and former rice fields, and Pintail Wildlife Drive is a one-way loop of three miles that visitors drive without leaving their vehicles. Hundreds of thousands of migrating birds pass through in fall, winter and spring.
The Drive, Stop by Stop
6 stops along the route, in driving order from Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu, Lake Charles, Louisiana to Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
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That's the drive. Take your time, pull over often, and let The Creole Nature Trail: Lake Charles to Cameron Prairie do what it does best.
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