Top Things to do in Mississippi
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Things to do in Mississippi, United States: The Best Historic Sites
From 24-hour casinos, upscale shopping and luxurious spas in Tunica to the Civil War sites in Vicksburg to the lush golf courses, beaches and upscale casinos in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi offers visitors a wide range of vacation experiences. Vacationers to Mississippi can choose from a diverse group of destinations and activities. On the Gulf Coast in Biloxi and Gulfport, casino gaming, big name entertainment shows, deep-sea fishing and golf, are popular pastimes. In Vicksburg, the Vicksburg National Cemetery and Civil War sites draw many visitors. In historic Natchez, you can take a scenic drive on the Natchez Trace Parkway or visit Frogmore Plantation, one of eight plantations originally owned by a wealthy Natchez planter. For an urban experience, Jackson, dubbed the “City with Soul” has over 50 nightclubs featuring Soul, Jazz, Blues, Rock and other musical genres. Tunica offers great casinos, golf and big name entertainers such as Bonnie Rait, Smokey Robinson and George Jones. Golfers, rejoice! Mississippi has more than 150 golf courses. Among the high-profile courses on everybody’s must play list are The Links at Cottonwoods and Tunica National Golf Tennis Club in Tunica and Grand Bear Golf Club in Saucier and The Bridges Golf Club at Hollywood Casino. Families visiting Mississippi fall in love with the heaping portions of Southern hospitality. Family-oriented activities are plentiful in Mississippi whether it’s enjoying the beaches on the Gulf Coast, visiting the home of Elvis Presley in Tupelo or riding a huge paddlewheeler on the Mississippi River.
Restaurants in Mississippi
1. Eudora Welty House and Garden
Overall Ratings
5.0 based on 121 reviews
For seventy-six years, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty lived and wrote in her Jackson home at 1119 Pinehurst Street. Restored by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History after her death in 2001, the house is open for tours.
Reviewed By 530JulieB530 - New Orleans, United States
I loved every moment of my time here. I had read the book "One Writer's Garden" and it was the perfect stage-setter for my visit. The docent was knowledgeable and gave a good tour. The tour begins with a video which was very helpful, and I returned to the Visitor Center after the tour. It helped that I was there on a gorgeous April day. The camellias were almost done, but azaleas were beautiful and roses just beginning to bloom.
2. Belmont Plantation
Overall Ratings
5.0 based on 37 reviews
Belmont Plantation, Est 1857 is the last antebellum mansion along the river in the Mississippi Delta, standing at over 9,000 square feet. The house and the grounds are currently undergoing an extensive restoration but are already available for weddings, events, tours, accommodations, and luxury sportsmen excursions!
Reviewed By shanynr2018 - Orange Beach, United States
Our family spent one night at the Belmont Plantation. It is beautiful! We stayed in the Victoria suite, beds were very comfortable and it was quiet. Morning of check out we enjoyed a delicious breakfast and enjoyed learning about the history of Belmont and had a tour of the grounds. We will definitely go back and highly recommend staying here.
3. Choctaw Hall
Overall Ratings
5.0 based on 87 reviews
Reviewed By WILLIAMS482
Natchez is a nice small town. Very quite. A buddy and I were riding our bikes on the Natchez Trace Parkway, and stayed one night at Choctaw Hall. It was a great place to stay! The best thing about our stay was the tour of the mansion by David Garner. He knew the history, was very interesting to listen to, and very funny. It was a great stay and I highly recommend for anyone. I plan to stay again someday.
4. Beauvoir
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 1,170 reviews
Home of Ex-Confederate President of the Confederate States of America where he lived his remaining 12 years of his life (post-war) and where he wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government." Golf Carts are now available to rent. Guided tour of the home showing how life was lived by the President and his family and self guided grounds (Varina's Garden, Cemetery, and nature trail), Museum, separated into 3 sections: Rotating Gallery, Soldier's Exhibit, and President Davis Exhibit. Research Library including reference books to accommodate most genealogy research focused on the Civil War.
Reviewed By interceptpubs - Columbus, United States
Built around 1850 by James Brown, a wealthy planter, as a summer home on the Gulf of Mexico, Brown called his new estate "Orange Grove." Brown died in 1866, but it wasn't until 1873 that the property was sold to pay back taxes and settle his estate. It quickly changed hands a couple of times, ending up in the possession of Sarah Ann Dorsey, the daughter of a wealthy planter in Natchez. She bought the house along with 600 hundred surrounding acres, renaming it "Beauvoir" or "beautiful view." Dorsey was a childhood friend of Varina Howell, Jefferson Davis' second wife, and herself had known the Davis family all her life, often visiting the Confederate president's elder brother Joseph's family at his home, Hurricane Plantation, near Vicksburg. When Jefferson Davis came to the Gulf Coast in 1877 seeking a place to write his memoirs, Dorsey offered him the use of one of the cabins on the estate. Two years later Dorsey died, leaving the entire estate to Davis. Davis, his wife, and their youngest daughter, known as Winnie, lived here until his death in 1889. The remaining two women moved to New York City in 1891, although they retained ownership of Beauvoir. The Davis family finally sold it in 1902 to the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans for use as a veterans home. It served in this role until 1953. The main house was turned into a shrine to the late Confederate president in 1941 with a museum honoring Confederate soldiers in the basement. With the closure of the veterans home, the home's hospital became the soldier's museum and a Davis' family museum took up the exhibit space in the main house's basement. In the late 90s, the Jefferson Davis Library and Museum were opened on the grounds. Unfortunately, just a few short years later, Katrina hit devastating the ocean front property. The main house survived, but has required extensive restoration that is only now in its final stages. A number of artifacts were also damaged, and the Library was effectively destroyed. Overall damage estimates exceeded $25 million dollars. Fortunately, much of the restoration is now complete, as we discovered in our recent visit to the estate. The first stop for visitors is the gift shop where tickets ($12.50 for adults) for the hourly house tours can be purchased. The tour itself last about 30 minutes and covers all the rooms in the house (although some rooms, such as Jefferson Davis' bedroom, are only looked at through the glass doors/windows). The rooms are mostly furnished with pieces from the Davis' family. The docent provides a fairly fast paced overview of the estate's history with a particular emphasis on the time that the Davis family lived here. After the house tour, we went back into the main building to look at the museum exhibits that take up much of the second floor. Items from Jefferson Davis, including correspondence, as well as an extensive collection of Civil War military material (edged weapons, rifles, flags, etc.) are on display. Some damaged items are shown to illustrate the havoc caused by Katrina. We then walked the 50 or so acres of grounds including out to the soldiers cemetery, where we found the grave of the Confederate unknown soldier, before finally hitting the gift shop to buy some interesting books on the history of the estate, the Civil War, and Mississippi. Overall, we spent about two hours here and enjoyed every minute of it.
5. Mississippi State Capitol
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 255 reviews
COVID-19 UPDATE FOR OUR VISITORS: Tours may be reserved for groups of 30 people or fewer. The unreserved, drop-in guided tours remain suspended, but guests are welcome to participate in self-guided tours. The gift shop remains closed. The building is open Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., should you wish to visit. We look forward to returning to a full tour schedule in the near future. Thank you. (Updated as of May 3, 2021) Patterned after the National Capitol, this has been the Capitol building for the state of Mississippi since 1903. Today it is major tourist attraction as well as the focus of Mississippi state government activities.
Reviewed By curtispat - Philadelphia, United States
The Mississippi State Capitol building is a very impressive building. The 1 hour guided tour (several times a day) is well worth your time.
6. Elvis Presley Center
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 104 reviews
The Center contains Elvis' birthplace home, a small museum and a memorial chapel, all open for tours.
Reviewed By dcluvtohunt - Longview, United States
This visit really brought back memories from when Elvis was King of music. I had visited his birthplace many years ago before the visitors center was added and before the family church was moved. This is tastefully done to pay tribute to a small boy’s humble beginnings. The house he was born in is still in the same location that his daddy built it. His parents could never have imagined their son would become a worldwide sensation. Love reading the stories from people that knew him. Especially the teacher that said he couldn’t carry a tune!!!
7. Melrose
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 514 reviews
Part of Natchez National Historical Park, Melrose is an antebellum plantation that features a slavery exhibit.
Reviewed By trevmat1 - Montgomery, United States
Standing elegant in beautiful surrounds, with extensive original furnishings throughout its rooms and many outbuildings intact and in very good repair, the Melrose estate is a great example of a lifestyle entirely dependent on slavery. It is empty now, a silent testament... until you reach the slave quarters. Here there are voices to be heard, voices of faith and endurance, voices of paternalism and condescension. The National Parks Service earns a big tick here.
8. Old Capitol Museum
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 213 reviews
COVID-19 UPDATE: Based on information provided by the Mississippi Department of Health about the coronavirus epidemic, we are temporarily closed until further notice. Jackson’s oldest building, the Old Capitol is home to a museum exploring the history of the site when it was the seat of Mississippi government from 1839 to 1903. The Old Capitol was the site of some of the state’s most significant legislative actions, such as the passage of the 1839 Married Women’s Property Act, Mississippi’s secession from the Union in 1861, and the crafting of the 1868 and 1890 state constitutions. The building is a National Historic Landmark, and one of the country’s premier examples of Greek Revival public architecture. When it was built in 1839, the massive limestone exterior, copper dome, and grand interior spaces made the Old Capitol the most distinguished building in Mississippi.
Reviewed By ianmantel
So much history packed into just 200 years. Great staff, well informed, happy to help Brits understand the way the Capitol worked and the set up of US politics, state and federal.
9. Rowan Oak
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 309 reviews
Reviewed By 866TaylorB - Chicago, United States
This is the third time my wife and I have visited Rowan Oak, the home of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner from the 1930s until his death in 1962. On two earlier occasions, we toured the Greek Revival house that was built in the 1840s and saw his typewriter and the famous outline of Faulkner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Fable that is penciled in graphite and red on the plaster wall of his study. One former curator discovered several of Faulkner's original manuscripts hidden within the house. Many of Faulkner's works, along with his Nobel Prize medallion, are on display in the University of Mississippi's J.D. Williams Library. On our most recent visit, however, the house at 916 Old Taylor Road, a mile from the Ole Miss campus and historic Oxford Square, was closed for COVID. So we were limited to walking around the four landscaped acres surrounding the house, the alley of cedars that lines the driveway and the 29 acres of wooded property known as Bailey's Woods. Rowan Oak was designated a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1968. The property, with an accompanying barn that Faulkner had converted from a log cabin, appears much as it did when Faulkner lived here.
10. Old Courthouse
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 459 reviews
Reviewed By marionz87 - Stuart, United States
This museum is amazing! There’s room after room of Civil War history and possessions. I learned so much about Vicksburg and it’s role, in the Civil War! I’d say- this museum is a must see/do!
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