On the basis of the experience of tourists in the “Cajuns country” in Louisiania, the author questions the opposition which is often made between the traveller and the native. Tourists’ opinions of their stay in Louisiana reveal their ambivalent relation to exoticism. Their perceptions and behaviours also highlight the ludic dimension of their experience, which is inscribed in an interplay of illusions privileging a humoristic mode used by the Cajuns to gain recognition.