Start from 26 curated places around Gulfport, MS, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
The Chimneys
A waterfront seafood institution tucked under live oaks on the eastern edge of the beachfront strip, with a dining room that faces the Gulf through a wall of windows. The kitchen turns out classic coastal dishes built around whatever comes in fresh that day, with a gumbo and a shrimp-and-grits that have been anchoring the menu long enough to be considered reference versions. Lunch and Sunday brunch draw locals who treat it as a neighborhood restaurant rather than a tourist stop.
Murky Waters Blues & BBQ
A downtown anchor in the middle of the Fishbone Alley block, combining slow-smoked BBQ with 17 rotating draft taps and a live blues and roots music stage that runs most evenings. The ribs and pulled pork are the real draw, and the collard greens pull their weight. The room is loose and loud when the music is on, and genuinely communal in the way that only a place serving both plates of food and cold beer in the same space can be.
Trails & outdoors
Jones Memorial Park Loop
A short, paved 0.8-mile loop around the waterfront park that circles the harbor promenade and is equally good as a morning walk or an evening stroll after dinner at the nearby restaurants. The route passes the replica lighthouse, the amphitheater, and the Ship Island ferry dock, giving a compressed overview of Gulfport's harbor without any exertion. Dolphin sightings in the harbor channel are most common in the cooler months.
Coffee Creek Recreational Trail
A paved one-mile trail corridor that follows Coffee Creek through a pocket of Southern Mixed Hardwood Forest in the middle of the city, feeling far more remote than its urban location suggests. The path is wide, shaded, and runs alongside the creek with enough canopy cover to make it comfortable even in summer. It is popular with dog walkers, runners, and families looking for a shaded break from the beach environment.
Things to do
Mississippi Aquarium
A nonprofit aquarium on the Gulfport waterfront that mixes indoor gallery space with outdoor habitats spanning nearly six acres. The facility keeps Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, sea turtles, American alligators, river otters, and over 200 species total. The outdoor exhibits give it a more open, airy feel than most aquariums in the region, and the ticketed SeaTREK underwater walking experience is a step above typical aquarium add-ons.
Ship Island Excursions
The ferry service from Gulfport's Small Craft Harbor to West Ship Island, a pristine barrier island 11 miles offshore that is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore. The 50-minute crossing typically has dolphin activity in the Mississippi Sound, and the island delivers clear, calm Gulf water, white sand beaches, and National Park Ranger tours of Fort Massachusetts, a massive pre-Civil War coastal fortification built from brick. The only way to reach the island is by this ferry.
Landmarks & sights
Jones Park
Gulfport's waterfront centerpiece, a 60-acre park and marina known locally as the Front Yard of Mississippi, where the downtown meets the Gulf. A promenade wraps the small-craft harbor past a replica 1886 lighthouse, and the amphitheater hosts community events year-round. Ferries to Ship Island depart from the harbor edge, making this the natural starting point for any visit to the coast.
Gulfport Museum of History
Housed inside Gulfport's beautifully preserved 1904 Union Station Railroad Depot, this free museum tells the story of a city founded by a railroad baron and shaped by Gulf hurricanes, civil rights history, and a port that still moves millions of tons of cargo. The segregated waiting rooms remain intact on either side of the original ticket booth, offering one of the most quietly affecting architectural records of the Jim Crow South anywhere on the Coast.