Biloxi Day Trips

Biloxi is a good home base precisely because it isn't stuck out on its own. Gulfport is a few minutes down the road, New Orleans is under two hours away, and a string of barrier islands sits just offshore. Rent a car for a day, or catch a ferry, and any of these are doable without giving up your hotel room back in Biloxi.

Gulfport, Mississippi — 13 miles

Gulfport is close enough that it barely counts as a day trip, but it's a nice change of scenery for an afternoon. Coast Transit Authority's Route 7 runs straight between the two downtowns if you'd rather skip the parking. Bayou Vista Golf Course is an 18-hole public course with a few genuinely tricky dogleg fairways, and 9-Ball Fishing Charters runs trips out of the Small Craft Harbor for redfish and speckled trout. Bring kids and you'll want Gulf Islands Waterpark, home to the Horn Island Blaster water coaster — it runs seasonally, roughly May through early September. On your way out, swing by the Magnolia Rocker on Canal Road, a 35-foot rocking chair built in 1995 that's still, by most counts, the largest in the world.

Ship Island — a Ferry Ride Away

Gulf Islands National Seashore runs along four Mississippi barrier islands — Horn, Petit Bois, East Ship, and West Ship — and West Ship Island is the one you can actually reach without your own boat. Ship Island Excursions runs a passenger ferry from the Gulfport harbor roughly mid-March through October; the crossing takes about an hour, and once you're there it's a swim beach, a snack bar, and Fort Massachusetts, a Civil War-era brick fort you can walk straight through the casemates of. Pack sunscreen and cash for the snack bar — there's no cell signal to speak of once you're out there.

Pascagoula, Mississippi — 20 miles

Pascagoula grew up as a fishing village and is now home to Ingalls Shipbuilding, Mississippi's largest employer and a builder of Navy destroyers — you'll spot the cranes from the highway. It's also the late Jimmy Buffett's hometown. The real reason to stop is the LaPointe-Krebs House, still known locally by its older name, the Old Spanish Fort: built in 1718 out of mud, moss, and oyster-shell walls, and still standing nearly three centuries later as one of the oldest buildings in the Mississippi Valley. It's open Monday through Saturday, with shorter hours in the winter months.

New Orleans, Louisiana — about 90 miles

New Orleans is closer to 90 miles than the 80 you'll sometimes see quoted, but the drive is still under two hours. The French Quarter, Jackson Square, and the combined Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium cover a full day on their own, and the National WWII Museum deserves an entire afternoon if you're at all interested in history. Go hungry — a muffuletta and a plate of beignets will take care of lunch and dessert without much effort.

Mobile, Alabama — 60 miles

Mobile actually beat New Orleans to Mardi Gras — the first celebration in the country happened here in 1703, and the city still runs its own parade season every year. The USS Alabama sits permanently docked at Battleship Memorial Park, and you can walk the deck and climb through the gun turrets on a self-guided tour that runs a couple of hours. The old 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center reopened in 2026 under the Alabama Wildlife Federation as the AWF Delta & Bay Conservation Center, with boat tours into the delta if you'd rather be on the water than on a warship. Mobile is a real golf town too — the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail's Magnolia Grove course is here, along with more than a dozen others.

Pensacola, Florida — 100 miles

Pensacola is the longest drive on this list, just under two hours, but it's the one with the whitest sand — the beaches here are quartz, not the darker Sound-side sand you get in Biloxi. The Pensacola Beach Gulf Pier still stretches nearly 1,471 feet into the water, billed as the longest fishing pier on the Gulf despite getting knocked around by more than one hurricane over the years. Time the drive home for sunset and you'll catch a good one from the causeway on your way out of town.

However you split it up, none of these require an overnight bag — you can be back at your Biloxi hotel in time for dinner at one of the restaurants on Beach Boulevard.