There is much more to Biloxi than casinos. One of the oldest communities on the Gulf Coast combines centuries of history, fresh seafood, beaches, art, barrier-island adventures, live entertainment, and a culture shaped by the water. If you are looking for the best things to do in Biloxi, start with the experiences that reveal those different sides of the city—from climbing its iconic lighthouse to tasting your way through historic downtown on a Biloxi food tour.
Biloxi works especially well for travelers who like variety. You can spend the morning learning about shrimp boats and hurricanes, eat Gulf seafood for lunch, relax beside the Mississippi Sound in the afternoon, and catch a concert or casino show after dark.
These are 12 experiences I would put near the top of a Biloxi itinerary, especially if this is your first trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
1. Visit the Biloxi Lighthouse & Visitors Center
Few places say Biloxi as immediately as the Biloxi Lighthouse. The cast-iron lighthouse has stood near the shoreline since 1848 and remains one of the city’s defining landmarks.
Start across the street at the Biloxi Visitors Center. The building is more than an information desk: exhibits introduce Biloxi’s history, people, cultural traditions, storms, and relationship with the Gulf. The second-floor porch also provides one of the better views of the lighthouse and beach.
Lighthouse tours are typically offered in the morning, weather and maintenance permitting, so check current conditions before planning your day.
2. Spend a Day on Ship Island
If you have enough time for a half-day or full-day adventure, Ship Island offers a completely different version of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, the barrier island sits roughly 12 miles offshore and combines undeveloped beaches with historic Fort Massachusetts.
The trip itself is part of the experience. Seasonal passenger ferries cross the Mississippi Sound, and dolphins are sometimes spotted along the way. Once ashore, visitors can walk to the Gulf-side swimming beach, explore the fort, picnic, or simply spend a few hours farther from development than you can get along the mainland shoreline.
Ferry service is seasonal, generally running from spring into fall, so this is one experience to plan ahead rather than leave to chance.
3. Experience Biloxi on a Walking Food Tour
Biloxi’s identity is inseparable from food. Generations of fishermen, shrimpers, oystermen, immigrants, restaurant owners, and home cooks have helped shape a food culture that is distinctly Coastal Mississippi. A guided food tour is one of the easiest ways to experience that history through the places still serving the city today.
The Biloxi Food Tour from Savor the Coast combines multiple local tastings with stories about Biloxi’s seafood heritage, music, architecture, people, and Gulf Coast culture. Rather than choosing a single restaurant for lunch, guests experience several flavors while exploring historic downtown on foot.
It is especially useful near the beginning of a visit. Along with the food itself, the tour gives guests a stronger sense of place and helps connect the restaurants, landmarks, and stories they will encounter throughout the rest of their time in Biloxi.
4. Discover Biloxi’s Seafood Story
To understand Biloxi, you have to understand the water. The Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum explores more than 300 years of the Coast’s maritime heritage, from shrimping and oystering to boatbuilding, commercial fishing, storms, and the families who built their lives around the Mississippi Sound.
This is one of the strongest stops for visitors who want the history behind the seafood on their plate. Biloxi’s reputation for Gulf shrimp and oysters is not simply a tourism theme—it grew out of an industry that shaped neighborhoods, immigration, employment, and daily life for generations.
The museum also operates the Biloxi Schooners, replicas inspired by the sailing vessels once used in the local oyster industry. When walk-on sails are available, they offer a memorable way to take the maritime story out of the exhibits and onto the water.
5. Explore the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art
Biloxi produced one of America’s most distinctive ceramic artists: George E. Ohr, the self-proclaimed “Mad Potter of Biloxi.” Today, his legacy anchors the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art.
The museum is interesting before you even enter a gallery. Its campus was designed by architect Frank Gehry, with sculptural buildings arranged around live oaks. Inside, exhibitions explore Ohr’s unconventional pottery alongside changing contemporary art and ceramics exhibits.
You do not need to be a pottery collector to enjoy it. Ohr’s personality, experimentation, and determination make his story one of the more memorable cultural threads on the Coast.
6. Eat Fresh Gulf Seafood
Seafood deserves to be treated as an experience in Biloxi, not just a meal. Shrimp, oysters, crab, and fresh Gulf fish have been part of the city’s identity for generations, and the options range from white-tablecloth institutions to casual spots where fried seafood arrives piled high on a platter.
One of Biloxi’s best-known historic restaurants is Mary Mahoney’s Old French House, where the setting carries almost as much history as the menu. Elsewhere around the city, restaurants interpret Gulf seafood through everything from traditional gumbo and fried shrimp to contemporary preparations.
If you are staying for several days, do not spend every meal at your hotel or resort. Exploring independent restaurants is one of the easiest ways to experience the Coast beyond its major attractions.
7. Relax on Biloxi Beach
Highway 90 follows a long stretch of white sand with frequent places to pull over, park, and walk toward the Mississippi Sound. That makes a beach stop one of the easiest things to add to almost any Biloxi itinerary.
The water here is different from the open Gulf beaches visitors may know from Florida or Alabama. Barrier islands protect the mainland shoreline, helping create the calmer Mississippi Sound. The beaches work especially well for a walk, sunset, picnic, or a slower afternoon between attractions.
For clearer Gulf water and a more remote beach experience, make Ship Island your beach day. For convenience and Gulf Coast atmosphere without leaving the city, Biloxi’s mainland shoreline is hard to beat.
8. Sail on a Biloxi Schooner
For one of the more unusual things to do in Biloxi, check the schedule for a sail aboard one of the Biloxi Schooners.
The vessels are replicas of the oyster schooners once known as the “White Winged Queens” of the Gulf Coast. Before powered boats transformed the seafood industry, schooners like these were part of the everyday landscape of the Mississippi Sound.
Walk-on sails are offered when the boats are not privately chartered and depend on passenger minimums and conditions, so call ahead. When the timing works, it is one of the best combinations of scenery and living history in Biloxi.
9. Experience Biloxi’s Casinos & Entertainment
Casinos are undeniably part of modern Biloxi, even if gambling is not the reason you came. The city’s major resorts function as entertainment complexes with restaurants, spas, pools, concerts, bars, and live shows in addition to gaming floors.
That means you can enjoy much of the resort experience without ever sitting at a slot machine. Check entertainment calendars at properties such as Beau Rivage, Hard Rock, IP, Golden Nugget, and others during your travel dates. National touring musicians, comedians, and performers regularly make Biloxi a stop.
If casinos are your main reason for visiting, they can anchor the evening. If they are not, think of them as one piece of a much broader city rather than the entire destination.
10. Explore Historic Downtown Biloxi
Biloxi makes more sense when you get away from the windshield for a while. Downtown and the surrounding historic areas reveal churches, public art, old commercial buildings, seafood landmarks, architecture, and reminders of the city’s French Colonial roots.
You will also see how much of Biloxi’s story is about reinvention. Hurricanes, fires, changing industries, casino development, and generations of rebuilding have repeatedly altered the physical city. Historic sites sometimes sit almost unexpectedly beside modern development.
This is another reason a guided walking experience can be useful: many of Biloxi’s best stories are attached to places you could easily drive past without realizing their significance.
11. Catch a Biloxi Shuckers Baseball Game
If your visit falls during baseball season, a Biloxi Shuckers game gives you a relaxed evening activity right in the city. Minor league baseball works especially well for families, groups, and travelers looking for something social that does not require an entire day.
The team’s coastal identity is built right into the name, and the downtown ballpark puts games within easy reach of restaurants, hotels, and other Biloxi attractions. Check the current schedule before your trip since home stands vary throughout the season.
12. Take a Short Trip to Ocean Springs
Biloxi can easily fill a trip by itself, but one of its advantages is how close it sits to other Gulf Coast communities. Just across Biloxi Bay, downtown Ocean Springs offers a noticeably different atmosphere with independent shops, galleries, restaurants, live music, and the Walter Anderson Museum of Art.
The two cities pair naturally. Biloxi brings larger attractions, resorts, maritime history, and nightlife; Ocean Springs adds a compact arts-oriented downtown that is easy to explore on foot.
If you have several days, read our guide to the best things to do in Ocean Springs and consider giving each city its own day rather than trying to rush through both.
What Are the Best Things to Do in Biloxi for First-Time Visitors?
If this is your first visit and you cannot do everything, prioritize the experiences that show you something uniquely Biloxi.
Start with the Biloxi Lighthouse and Visitors Center for context. Spend another part of the day learning about the city’s relationship with the water at the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum or on a schooner. Make Gulf seafood part of the itinerary rather than an afterthought, and explore downtown on foot or through a guided food tour.
If you have an extra day during ferry season, Ship Island is worth giving its own block of time. For art and architecture, add Ohr-O’Keefe. For nightlife, finish the evening with live music, a show, or one of Biloxi’s casino resorts.
A Simple One-Day Biloxi Itinerary
If you only have one day in Biloxi, begin at the Lighthouse and Visitors Center in the morning. From there, head toward historic downtown and spend the middle of the day experiencing Biloxi through its food and local stories. In the afternoon, visit either the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum or Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art.
Give yourself some unstructured time along the beach before sunset, then finish with Gulf seafood, live entertainment, or an evening at one of the resorts.
For a longer trip, our Biloxi itinerary gives you room to experience the city at a slower pace and explore more of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
More Than Casinos: Experience the Real Biloxi
The best things to do in Biloxi reveal a city with several identities at once. It is a beach destination and a working seafood town, an entertainment center and a historic Gulf Coast community, a place for art museums and casino stages, quiet mornings on the Sound and late nights under neon lights.
You can certainly build a Biloxi vacation around the resorts. But step beyond them and you will find the experiences that make the destination difficult to duplicate elsewhere: climbing an 1848 lighthouse, learning how shrimp shaped a city, sailing aboard an oyster schooner, tasting generations of Gulf Coast cooking, exploring the work of the Mad Potter, and riding across the Sound toward a barrier island.
That combination is what makes Biloxi worth exploring rather than simply passing through.