Baton Rouge

[updated september 2024]

SO, roomiematch.com's Baton Rouge roommate rundown:

Baton Rouge is LSU's college town. Some say Baton Rouge is the tailgating capitol of the entire world!

If you relocate here and live with roommates, for sure you'll be invited along on a tailgate. Learn to love LSU. If you have multiple roommates, loving LSU will be essential to getting along with at least one of them.

Baton Rouge is also a hot and muggy ocean port that frequently floods due to proximity to the Gulf. You and your roommates should have a safety kit for floods, and look out for any stained glass windows.

Baton Rouge is also the vaguely Gothic capital of Louisiana and the seat of the state government - covered in history and bridal showers and juke joints with the blues plus Cajun food.

And a famous swamp.

Come for the Southern Gothic, stay for the cheap and easy lifestyle. Definitely including the rent!

(But not the humidity.)

The rest of Baton Rouge's roommate lowdown:

• capital of Louisiana, but still a college town - second largest city in Louisiana (after New Orleans), approximately half a million in the greater metro area
• located along the Mississippi River, 10th largest ocean port - summers are very long, hot, muggy, and rainy, while winters are mild and snow is rare
• Baton Rouge is home to Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge Community College, Franciscan Ministries of Our Lady University, and Southern University (the flagship for the Southern University System, the largest historically black college system).
• The Capital Area Transit System (CATS) serves urban Baton Rouge including most of its colleges and universities, and most have bike racks. However, you and/or your roommates will probably still want a car if you must venture much outside your own neighborhood on a regular basis.
• Louisiana is the only US state saying "parish" where all others say "county."
• Proximity to the Gulf of Mexico means a few hurricanes, often with flooding. You and your roommates should have a safety kit for flood-related emergencies.

After you're settled down, you and your roommates should experience Baton Rouge's:

• Tailgating Parties: College sports are very popular including football, baseball, basketball, and gymnastics with LSU tailgate parties among the most popular in town. Some say Baton Rouge is the tailgating capitol of the entire world!
• Museums: Museums include The Shaw Center for the Arts, the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, the LSU Museum of Natural Science, The Capital Park Museum, and the Odell S. Williams Now And Then African-American Museum. The LASM includes science exhibits and a planetarium.
• Louisiana's State Capitol (the newer one): Current seat of the Louisiana State Government. It's 34 floors, with an Observation Deck you and your roommates can visit for stunning views of the skyline at sunset.
• Louisiana's Old State Capitol: Beautiful Gothic castle downtown near the Mississippi River. It's an historic landmark now operating as the Museum of Political History. The stained-glass windows are popular with wedding parties. There would be no charge to tour with your roommates. There's even an audio guide.
• Cajun Crawfish: This is Cajun country. Definitely try the boiled crawfish with corn and potatoes.
• Blue Bonnet Swamp: Approximately 100 acres inside South Baton Rouge is a famous swamp. It's called the Blue Bonnet Swamp Nature Center, and you and your roommates can walk around on the trails.
• Park System: Baton Rouge features over 140 acres of parkland, which includes the Baton Rouge Zoo, which itself includes over 1800 species. The overall park system also includes the walkable Levee Path and free lessons on everything from climbing to boarding.
• Mall of Louisiana: Opened in 1997, and remains the largest mall in Louisiana. Cara, a twelve-foot-long Burmese python, escaped her aquarium enclosure and roamed the insides of the walls of the mall for 2 days in 2021.
• Mike the Tiger: The LSU mascot, lives across the street from the stadium in a lush habitat with his own waterfall. Previously, during games, Mike was wheeled around in a cage with cheerleaders dancing on top. But now he mostly hangs out near his swimming pool.
• Teddy's Juke Joint has welcomed blues fans for over 40 years. (The Baton Rouge Blues Festival has as well, but it can't claim to be open all year.) The Juke Joint's history is rich, particularly featuring "classic juke" and "swamp" blues styles. You and your roommates could visit any day of the year, even holidays "because blues doesn't get a day off." They feature blues acts a few nights a week where a visit will be "like stepping into the past, like walking back into 1979."
• also on Highway 61, the famous "Blues Highway"

Here's the Living in Baton Rouge page, which lists community links and resources plus offices dealing with neighborhood and Parish issues.

Notes

1.   The non-traditional roommate rent average for this city we've experienced over the last 3 years. We can't predict future rental availability, because we're neither in control of any rental market nor psychic, sorry!

But in most cities most of the time, the recent and relatively recent past are the best predictors.


2.   This idea came from smartasset.com's ranking of what a roommate saves you in 50 cities. They ranked where roommates will save you the most money, based on the average cost of a 1BR as opposed to a 2BR ÷ 2. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the city, the more you can save, but the savings are significant in all larger metros. So we got the data for the rest of our cities from Zumper too.

This is really the minimum you could save, as you could live with more than one roommate, split more services, share food or other supplies, etc. More sharing tends to lead to more savings too, as per our roommate roadmap.

As per the rest of the description at the top of this page, we're calling this "traditional" roommate rent.


3.   From zumper.com.


4.   Directly quoted from the Trust for Public Land's parkland rating system.

"The ParkScore index awards each city up to 100 points for acreage based on the average of two equally weighted measures: median park size and parkland as a percentage of city area. Factoring park acreage into each city’s ParkScore rating helps account for the importance of larger “destination parks” that serve many users who live farther than ten minutes’ walking distance."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual ParkScore, nature lovers might like to see all roommate cities ranked for parkland.


5.   Directly quoted from Walk Score's Cities and Neighborhoods Ranking. They've ranked "more than 2,800 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods so you can find a walkable home or apartment."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual Walk Score, dedicated pedestrians might like to see all roommate cities ranked for walkability.


6.   From various lists here on our own best roommate cities.


7.   From hoodmaps.com: a collaborative map where residents use tags describing social situations you're likely to find. Other users can thumb up or down, so the largest tags have been thumbed up the most.