This was our first trip to New Orleans. The location was about a 25 minute street car ($1.25 per trip or a $5.00 day pass) ride to Bourbon Street and easily an hour if you want to venture over to far end of Garden District. The area is definitely quieter, but not much around. That said, there's a corner Irish bar that we visted after getting in late, which had decent pub grub. We ate breakfast at Canal Street Bistro about a half mile from the house and at Ruby Slipper Cafe about half mile on Broad Street - both were great.
We were there for the French Quarter Festival, which was great. We did a lot of other exploring. It was definitely a ways to get over to parts of Garden District. And a $15-18 uber to hot spot at Jacques-Imos - a must go place to eat - worth the wait and drive time or street car ride. The city is lovely to explore. We didn't do City Park, but it's not far from there - definitely next trip. All-in-all, the location isn't bad, if you want to escape crowds and some of the city noise. We did a swamp tour through Cajun Encounters - they picked us up a few blocks away from the India House Hostel.
The room isn't bad. It was clean, but a bit muggy (our towels never fully dried - maybe that's typical for the area), despite AC running. We had one issue with the bed frame being cracked, but they promptly responded and did a quick fix. The king was comfortable. It would have been great to have ice trays for ice, but they brought ice when the fixed the bed and a bottle of champagne for the inconvenience. The bathroom is very small (no counter space), but has a nice big tiled shower - there was a variety of shampoos and conditioners, as well as a bottle of SPF. On a final note, there were 3 of those scented plug-ins for a super small space. If you're sensitive to smells or perfumes, this might be overpowering. We unplugged all three, but it was still strong.