Only true bibliophiles like us would visit the French Quarter in New Orleans and make a beeline for an old bookstore instead of a bar. Beckham’s Bookshop has been a venerable institution in the Crescent City for more than fifty years. The three-story shop is packed with handsome bookcases brimming with antiquarian, collectible, and secondhand titles. The Decataur Street fixture specializes in history, art, design, militaria, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and the Old South. There’s even a floor dedicated to secondhand vinyl.

Beckham’s Bookshop is open seven days a week and has a smaller just as eclectic branch called Librairie Books near the famous Jackson Square.