Front Beach Park — Ocean Springs Beach

Three miles of sand curve along Biloxi Bay's Sound side with no Highway 90 alongside it, no casinos on the horizon, no seawall. The least crowded swimming beach on the Mississippi Gulf Coast — no high-rises within sight. It faces south into the Sound with barrier islands on the horizon, the same view the Biloxi people saw when Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville found them in 1699. Ocean Springs spreads behind the beach, the town where Iberville established Fort Maurepas in April 1699 — the first permanent French outpost in French Louisiana. The fort is gone. Hurricane Katrina destroyed its wooden replica on August 29, 2005. Katrina's 28-foot storm surge also destroyed the Biloxi Bay Bridge, which connected Biloxi to Ocean Springs until the new bridge opened on November 1, 2007. The beach remains sand and water. Free access. A fishing pier. Families spread out with more space than they expected.