E-Mail This Article to a Friend Foreign customs Quirky weekend getaways to shake things up BY GENEVIEVE RAJEWSKI

When it comes to travel, you can take one of two routes. Follow the typical guidebook and you’ll likely find yourself surrounded by other tourists at bland chain hotels. Perhaps you and a stranger will share a smile over continental breakfast before you each head off on a cookie-cutter tour designed to show you all of a city’s famous sites.

Or you can truly journey elsewhere by seeking out an experience unique to that area — one in which you rub shoulders with a variety of the city’s citizens, from families to colorful drunkards. For a failsafe shortcut to going native, join the locals during a time of revelry, when their inhibitions are low and their unique sense of humor is in full force.

Here are three lesser-known events, in three popular destinations, to which you can transport yourself from ordinary routine. Best of all, each involves only a weekend away, though you may well want to stay longer.

Dueling Brandos

You could go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. But if you’d prefer not to flash skin for a few plastic beads, head south for the Stella Shouting Contest, where you can bellow in homage to a film classic instead.

Held every March as part of the five-day Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, the "Stell-Off" pits 20 men and women against each other for the best interpretation of the famous scene from A Streetcar Named Desire.

In the film version of Streetcar, Marlon Brando’s Stanley — miserable after hitting his pregnant wife in a drunken rage — mournfully calls out for Kim Hunter’s Stella, begging her to come downstairs from the neighbor’s apartment in which she has sought refuge. In the Stell-Off, each contestant gets to direct three "yells" to his or her "spouse," who stands on a balcony overlooking Jackson Square. Men yell for Stella’s attention, women for Stanley’s. The judges — a random group that has included the likes of author Dakin Williams (Tennessee’s brother) and movie critic Rex Reed — then select five finalists to compete on the venerable stage of Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré.

Should you compete, you’ll find yourself largely among friendly Texas and Louisiana natives. Despite the obvious limitations of word choice, each contestant is like no other — from those who scream into a cell phone to Brando wanna-bes in tight tees, to wrinkled old women screeching for Stanley.

This year, the Stella Shouting Contest preliminaries will be held in Jackson Square on March 28, at 4:30 p.m., with the finals on Le Petit Théâtre Main Stage at 5:30. The event is free and open to the public. To participate, simply show up about half an hour early at Jackson Square and sign up.

The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival itself takes place March 24 through 28 and offers plenty of diversions for shouters and non-shouters alike. Programs include panel discussions, master classes, theatrical performances (including The Glass Menagerie), music, a poetry slam, a book fair, and more.

You can also enjoy food samples from leading New Orleans chefs, cookbook signings, and swing music at "Words To Eat By: New Orleans Cooks and Books — Who Taught Ya Ta Cook Like That?" The event begins on March 28, with a panel discussion at 10 a.m. and tastings and signings beginning at 11:30 a.m. at the Hotel Monteleone La Nouvelle Meeting Space. Tickets are $25.

On March 27 at 5 p.m., Brennan’s Restaurant hosts "Tennessee Sips: A Wine and Word Pairing." Created by Gourmet wine consultant Michael Green, the event will feature wines that evoke the characters and atmosphere of Williams’s works. Tickets are $50.

Offered March 26 and 27 at 4 p.m., the festival’s "History with a Twist Cocktail Tour" will visit the fabled drinking establishments of New Orleans. Tickets cost $20; beverages are sold separately. Other walking tours focus on African-American history, cinema sites, gay history, cemeteries, and (of course) Tennessee Williams.

Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, (504) 581-1144; www.tennesseewilliams.net.

Independence days

While the Stell-Off seems to celebrate a declaration of dependence, Florida’s Key West is home to a rite of an even more independent nature. And lest you assume that this event, too, involves a famous author, think again. Rather than celebrate Papa (Hemingway Days are in July), the 10-day Conch Republic Independence Day Celebration centers on the town’s inside joke.

The Conch Republic was founded on April 23, l982, in response to a US Border Patrol roadblock on the Overseas Highway of the Florida Keys. All northbound traffic was stopped and searched for illegal aliens, and the ensuing traffic jam depressed Key West’s tourism industry.

In protest, Key West mayor Dennis Wardlow "seceded" from the Union and declared war on the US. After symbolizing the conflict by breaking a loaf of stale Cuban bread over the head of a man in a US Navy uniform, the mayor surrendered and demanded billions of dollars in foreign aid. As the US government never responded to the secession, locals have jokingly declared themselves dual citizens.

This year marks the 22nd anniversary of the Conch Republic, which residents will celebrate in a "public and notorious manner" from April 23 to May 2. And it’s free and easy to join them — in drag, in pirate gear, or in summer clothes still undreamed of further north — for bed-racing, bluegrass fiddling, bar crawls, and more.

On April 24, from 1 to 11 p.m., you can watch the time trials, semifinals, and finals of the Conch Republic Drag Race, which features drag queens dashing in stilettos. If crowd participation is more your thing, on April 29, join the World’s Longest Parade from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. At 8 p.m., people get out of their cars and step out of bars to follow the impromptu parade down Duval Street to the Schooner Wharf Bar for a Mardi Gras–style bash.

On April 30, the "historical re-enactments" begin at noon with the raising of the conch flag at Fort Taylor and the firing of cannons. At 6 p.m., head to the Bloody Battle Parties at the Ocean Key and the Key West Hilton on Key West Harbor to view the great battle for the Conch Republic, in which sailors fire water cannons at each other’s homemade boats. At 9 p.m., the Schooner Wharf Bar hosts a victory party.

The Conch Republic Fiddler’s Contest at the Green Parrot Bar will see fiddlers vie for awards in this jam of blues, bluegrass, and "old-timey" music. The contest takes place from 3 to 7 p.m. on May 1. Also on May 1, you can catch the festival’s oldest and most famous event: the Red Ribbon Bed Race. At 2 p.m., beds will be raced down Duval Street to benefit AIDS Help, Inc. And at 7 p.m., don your best eye patch and fake parrot for pillaging and plundering at the Schooner Wharf Bar’s Pirate’s Ball and Pig Roast.

Conch Republic Independence Day Celebration, (305) 295-7215; www.conchrepublic.com.

Make a splash

In its heyday, New York’s Coney Island teemed with lights and life. People from all walks of life were packed shoulder to shoulder across its sprawling beach. An elephant-shaped hotel rose above Surf Avenue, and flappers posed coyly next to the world’s largest swimming pool. Three major amusement parks flourished in the early 20th century, and each was more fantastic than the one before — full of animal acts, ballrooms, and dangerously wild rides that would now likely reap lawsuits.

Nearly everything from this period has been lost over the years to spectacular fires and demolitions spurred by financial failures. Yet some vestiges of Coney’s past glory remain, including the Cyclone roller coaster, the Wonder Wheel, and the non-functioning Parachute Jump (Brooklyn’s Eiffel Tower). And these colorful rides, the roiling Atlantic, and modern games such as Shoot the Freak (in which people fire paintballs at human targets) provide a marvelous backdrop for one of New York’s most uninhibited displays.

Held every year just after the summer solstice, Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade celebrates the "opening" of the Atlantic Ocean for the season. Hundreds of mermaids, mermen, Neptunes, sea creatures, antique cars, and homemade floats, as well as thousands of spectators, flock to Surf Avenue to participate in the event, which is a splendid combination of Brazil’s Carnevale and an art show.

As part of the parade, held this year on June 26, jellyfish march under umbrellas decorated with streamers. Mermaids glimmer in little more than body paint and pasties. Young ladies in retro bathing suits stroll alongside octopi and Popeyes. And floats feature Coney Island icons, such as Topsy, an infamously abused circus elephant that was publicly electrocuted in 1903 after trampling three people.

Dick Zigun, head of the nonprofit Coney Island USA and founder of the event, says the boardwalk offers great views of the parade against a backdrop of sand and surf, while Surf Avenue is the best spot to see the entire march, as it allows for motorized floats and cars. However, as the parade goes in a circle, he notes that you could just get drunk and run from one side to the other, making it seem "like a very, very big parade."

Mermaid Parade, www.coneyisland.com .

Genevieve Rajewski can be reached at ticktockwordshop@comcast.net