Things to Do in Biloxi
Biloxi's attractions span three centuries and several genuinely distinct identities -- French colonial history, a Confederate-era historic house, a nationally significant art museum, working-waterfront maritime history, and a modern casino-resort entertainment district -- giving it a broader attraction mix than most beach towns this site covers.
The Casino Resorts: Entertainment, Not Just Gaming
Biloxi's six major casino resorts -- Beau Rivage, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, IP Casino Resort Spa, Golden Nugget Biloxi, Scarlet Pearl Casino Resort, and Palace Casino Resort -- function as full entertainment complexes, not gaming floors alone, with live music and concert venues, spas, and hotel-standard amenities alongside table games and slots. Golden Nugget Biloxi specifically operates 49 table games and 1,159 slot machines alongside its own marina. Combined Gulf Coast casino gaming revenue ran roughly $1.59 billion in 2025, a real, sizable indicator of the scale of this entertainment economy relative to the size of the city itself.
The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art
The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art houses the whimsical ceramics of George Ohr, known as the "Mad Potter of Biloxi," within a distinctive Gehry-designed campus -- a genuinely notable architectural and cultural attraction for a city this size, bringing internationally recognized design and a nationally significant ceramics collection to Biloxi rather than relying solely on beach-and-casino tourism.
Beauvoir: The Last Home of Jefferson Davis
Beauvoir, built in 1852, was the last home of Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederacy, and operates today as a historic house museum -- also described in some historical framing as a memorial to the "Lost Cause," a contested historical and commemorative framing worth understanding honestly rather than glossing over. It's a real, significant historic site on the National Register, and visitors should approach it with awareness of both its architectural and historical significance and the genuinely debated nature of Lost Cause commemorative framing in American public history.
The Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum
Established in 1986, the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum preserves and interprets the maritime history of Biloxi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast through exhibits on shrimping, oystering, recreational fishing, wetlands and marine-resource management, charter boats, marine blacksmithing, wooden boat building, net-making, traditional Biloxi schooners and skiffs, and historic shrimp-peeling machinery -- a genuine, substantive institution documenting the working-waterfront identity that predates the casino economy by more than a century.
The Biloxi Lighthouse
The Biloxi Lighthouse, erected in 1848 at the water's edge along U.S. Highway 90, has become a real symbol of the city's resilience, having withstood Katrina and other major historical hurricanes -- a genuinely rare surviving piece of pre-Civil War Gulf Coast maritime infrastructure, sitting today essentially in the median of the highway that runs the length of the beachfront.
Ship Island and Gulf Islands National Seashore
For a genuinely different, undeveloped-beach experience, Ship Island Excursions runs the only authorized public ferry to Ship Island, part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, roughly 10 miles offshore -- with departure points in both Gulfport and at the Margaritaville Resort in Biloxi, an approximately one-hour crossing each way, and a free guided tour of Fort Massachusetts (dating to the late 1850s) available on the island. This is covered in more depth on this site's Boating & Water Access page.
Mardi Gras
Biloxi's Mardi Gras tradition, run through the Gulf Coast Carnival Association, traces its parade history back to 1908, making it a genuine, long-running local cultural institution rather than a tourist-oriented recreation of a New Orleans tradition -- King d'Iberville and Queen Ixolib (Biloxi spelled backward) serve as the official royalty of Mississippi Gulf Coast Mardi Gras, a distinctly local naming convention that reflects the city's own French colonial founding.
A Broader Attraction Mix Than Most Beach Towns This Site Covers
Stepping back, what's genuinely distinctive about Biloxi's attraction lineup is its range: a Gehry-designed contemporary art museum, a Confederate-era historic house museum with real, actively debated commemorative history, a working-waterfront maritime museum, a pre-Civil War lighthouse, a barrier-island ferry to a national seashore, a 118-year-old Mardi Gras tradition, and a modern casino-resort entertainment district -- spanning roughly three and a half centuries of documented local history in a single city smaller than 50,000 residents. Most beach towns on this site offer a narrower band of that range, typically weighted toward outdoor recreation and dining without the depth of formal cultural institutions Biloxi has built and maintained. That breadth is worth factoring into a decision about whether Biloxi fits a buyer's or visitor's specific interests, separate from the beach-and-casino headline identity the city is best known for nationally.
Planning a Visit Around Multiple Attraction Types
Because Biloxi's attractions split across genuinely different categories -- indoor cultural institutions, outdoor/water-based recreation, and casino-resort entertainment -- a visitor or new resident benefits from planning around more than one category rather than assuming a single day covers the city's range. The indoor museums (Ohr-O'Keefe, Beauvoir, Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum) are weather-independent options worth prioritizing during hurricane-season rain or summer's hottest afternoon hours, while the Ship Island ferry and beachfront recreation are naturally weather- and season-dependent, discussed in more depth on this site's Seasonal Recreation page.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from: Coastal Mississippi's own visitor materials for casino resort descriptions; American Casino Guide Book for Golden Nugget Biloxi's specific table-game and slot-machine counts; the American Gaming Association's 2026 Mississippi State of the States report for 2025 Gulf Coast casino revenue; the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art's own materials; multiple historic-site sources (Visit Mississippi, Mississippi Encyclopedia) for Beauvoir's 1852 construction and its history as Jefferson Davis's last home; the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum's own materials for its 1986 founding and exhibit scope; historical descriptions of the Biloxi Lighthouse's 1848 construction and Katrina survival; Ship Island Excursions' own published ferry schedule and Fort Massachusetts information; and the Gulf Coast Carnival Association's own materials for Biloxi's Mardi Gras history since 1908. Facts not independently confirmed and not invented here include: current hours, admission prices, or seasonal schedules for any named attraction. Confirm current hours and admission directly with each attraction before planning a visit. Nothing on this page is a comprehensive attractions directory.