Mississippi Gulf Coast

[jplante4]

Continuing our first snow bird winter, we left Topsail in the Florida panhandle, blew right through Alabama (gotta leave something for next time) and made our way to Buccaneer State Park, just west of Biloxi, MS and about 20 miles from the Louisiana border.

The park is mostly quiet and clean. Being off season, the attached water park was closed. We were there over Mardi Gras and the locals from NOLA escaped to Buccaneer for the weekend. The park pretty much filled up on Friday afternoon and emptied out by Sunday. Over the week it was pretty much deserted.

There's not much to do at the park or in the area. The Silver Slipper Casino is down the beach road and has it's own RV parking lot with shuttle services. Ice is available at the park, but the camp store was closed and didn't look like it had much when it was open anyway.

There's a small market in Clermont Harbor that also sells propane, which is good because there's no propane delivery to the park. US90 has the Walmart etc.

This is no place for not having a toad. Enterprise is in Gulfport and doesn't pick up. We were there for 2 weeks and other than dropping for a few hours one day to go get propane, there was absolutely nothing to do. I rode the bike all around the park, met a few locals and waxed the bus.

Do a search in this section for other comments on the route in, but take my advise and ignore the web site's directions from the east and just go west on US90 to Lakeshore Rd. The grade crossing is flat there. Other grade crossing are scary in a motor home. I can't imagine trying to cross them towing something.

On Edit: I forgot to add that we only got a couple of NOLA TV stations OTA. Also, for more quiet, don't do Treasure Cove loop. The are 12 CSX trains a day that go by on the tracks adjecent to that part of the park. To some, this is also a plus :).

[jplante4]

I also like to add that the people in this area are very friendly. The kids in the next site brought over some of the shrimp boil they were having, and I met several people in the park by just saying Hi and starting a conversation. Being from "stick-up-the-butt" New England, it was quite refreshing.

[wxtoad]

Just a few weeks ago we spent a week at Buccaneer SP and thoroughly enjoyed. The state deserves a lot of credit for doing such a great job rebuilding the park after being destroyed by Katrina. Facilities were top-notch.

Quiet is good! We enjoyed long walks every day all through the park and also enjoyed several bike rides into town. We weren't in the back near the railroad, but being a train fan, I didn't mind the occasional noise at all.

Our stop prior to Buccaneer was Davis Bayou in Ocean Springs. This is one of favorite parks.

WxToad

[garmp]

We were there just as tropical storm Patricia hit, well the day before. Got the storm info on our tablet and tracked the storm path and progress. Next day went to the Silver Slipper and got a room for the night and the TV news projected the timeline for the storm, so we set our plans. Played the slots, ate a buffet and woke up refreshed, dry and headed to Fontainebleau SP to continue our trip. Very enjoyable in all with just a minor hiccup due to the weather.
Buccaneer SP was nice, but Davis Bayou, to us, was far better, as campground go.

[K_Charles]

To say there is not much to do might be a plus to some. We usually stay at Buccaneer State Park for only a week or 10 days,it is clean and quiet and you can park with a good view of the water. There are places to eat and another casino just a few miles away. I think it is the only city on the gulf shore that doesn't allow high rise building on the shore. If you like quiet and you go off season you will like it.