Things to Do in Gulfport
Gulfport's attractions run from a downtown aquarium built as a deliberate Katrina-recovery landmark to an offshore national seashore reachable only by ferry -- a genuinely varied, real, named set of things to do, not generic beach-town filler.
Mississippi Aquarium: Opened on Katrina's 15th Anniversary, on Purpose
The Mississippi Aquarium opened in downtown Gulfport on August 29, 2020 -- deliberately timed to the fifteenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, per multiple sources including the Oxford Eagle's contemporaneous coverage. It replaced the Marine Life Oceanarium, which Katrina destroyed. Set on 5.8 acres, the aquarium connects its indoor and outdoor habitats via landscaped walkways featuring plants representing all seven of Mississippi's physiographic regions, and houses more than 200 species of animals alongside roughly 50 species of native plants, per the aquarium's own materials. It functions as the anchor of downtown Gulfport's broader redevelopment plan, positioned to draw both residents and tourists to the same waterfront corridor as the Gulfport Municipal Marina and Half Shell Oyster House.
Ship Island and Gulf Islands National Seashore
The Ship Island Ferry departs the Gulfport Small Craft Harbor for Ship Island, part of Gulf Islands National Seashore roughly 11 miles offshore -- one of the last undeveloped barrier island systems in the country, protected by the National Park Service. The ferry runs roughly March through October, costs $30 per adult and $20 per child round trip, and takes about 70 minutes each way, per msshipisland.com's own schedule. Ship Island includes a preserved Civil War-era fort along with miles of genuinely undeveloped white-sand beach for swimming, shelling, and birding -- a real contrast to Gulfport's own engineered, developed mainland beachfront, and a distinctly different beach experience reachable without owning a boat.
Jones Park: The City's Rebuilt Waterfront Heart
Jones Park -- a 60-acre park and harbor complex known locally as the "Front Yard of Mississippi" -- traces back to entrepreneur Joseph T. Jones, who funded the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad and developed Gulfport's original harbor; the park itself was bequeathed to the city in 1935 by Jones's heir, Grace Jones Stewart. Completely submerged under 25 feet of water during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the park underwent a full, multi-year rebuild before reopening in May 2012 with a marina, a promenade walk, a splash pad, a playground, an amphitheater, and the 23,000-square-foot Barksdale Pavilion event space, per the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area's own account. It functions today as Gulfport's primary public waterfront gathering space, covered in more depth on this site's Boating & Water Access page.
Lynn Meadows Discovery Center: A Children's Museum in a 1915 Schoolhouse
The Lynn Meadows Discovery Center occupies a 1915 schoolhouse building just blocks from the beach, offering 15,000 square feet of hands-on exhibits, including a "Celebrate the World We Share" cultural exhibit, a Dolan Avenue Depot train exhibit, and an "Art Knows Anything Goes" art studio, per the center's own materials. Admission runs $10, with free entry on last Fridays. It's a real, specific, historically housed institution -- a repurposed century-old schoolhouse -- rather than a generic modern children's-museum building, adding a genuine architectural and historic dimension to what's otherwise a standard family attraction category.
Island View Casino Resort
Island View Casino Resort opened in September 2006 on the site of the Katrina-destroyed Copa Casino, after local owners purchased the former Harrah's Grand Casino Gulfport property and rebuilt it as Island View, per Islands.com's coverage. It offers an 83,000-square-foot gaming floor with more than 2,000 slot machines and 47 table games, sitting roughly six miles from Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport. Worth noting explicitly, given how easily Gulfport and Biloxi get conflated: Island View is Gulfport's one significant casino property, not the center of the city's broader economic identity the way gaming is for neighboring Biloxi -- this site's What Nobody Tells You page covers that distinction in more depth.
The Port of Gulfport, as a Sight in Itself
For visitors interested in maritime and industrial history, the Port of Gulfport itself -- a 300-acre deepwater terminal with three (soon four) 100-ton ship-to-shore gantry cranes and a Department of Defense Strategic Seaport designation -- is a genuinely visible, active piece of the city's identity, covered in more depth on this site's hub page. This page did not independently confirm whether the port offers any formal public tours or visitor access program; treat it as a backdrop and a point of civic identity rather than a confirmed visitor attraction with scheduled access.
What This Page Doesn't Cover
This page names real, sourced, specific Gulfport attractions rather than attempting an exhaustive, current list of every activity in the broader Mississippi Gulf Coast region. It does not cover Biloxi-specific attractions (covered on that market's own pages on this site), current specific hours or ticket pricing beyond what's cited above, or newer attractions that may have opened since this research was conducted. Confirm current hours, pricing, and availability directly with each attraction before planning a visit.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from: the Oxford Eagle's, WLOX's, and Wikipedia's coverage of the Mississippi Aquarium's August 29, 2020 opening, its Katrina-anniversary timing, and its size and species count; msshipisland.com's own schedule, pricing, and route information for the Ship Island Ferry, and National Park Service materials on Gulf Islands National Seashore; the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area's own materials for Jones Park's history, its founding tie to Joseph T. Jones and Grace Jones Stewart's 1935 bequest, its Katrina submersion, and its 2012 reopening; the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center's own materials for its 1915 schoolhouse building, exhibit content, and admission pricing; and Visit Mississippi's and Islands.com's coverage of Island View Casino Resort's 2006 opening, gaming-floor size, and site history. Facts not independently confirmed and not invented here include: current ticket pricing and hours for the Mississippi Aquarium and Lynn Meadows Discovery Center at the time you're reading this; whether the Port of Gulfport offers any formal public visitor access program; and a comprehensive, current list of every attraction and event in Gulfport beyond those named here. Confirm current hours, pricing, and availability directly with each attraction before planning a visit.