Experiencing History is a great reason to RV. Sometimes you stumble into historic places that you didn’t know had significant history, which makes the RV Adventure even better. That was the case when we visited our friends Mike and Neena in Waveland, Mississippi.

We got to their house late at night with the RV and parked the 27 ft Class C Sunseeker in their driveway. I was expecting to Yamp (yard camp) since they just had a baby boy, but they had an extra room and invited us to stay in their beautiful home. After catching up for awhile we all headed to bed. I woke up for sunrise the next day and walked to the Beach. I had the entire beach to myself.

Sunrises are my favorite time of day because they’re so calm and peaceful. But I couldn’t understand why in such a gorgeous area there were so many empty lots and everything felt abandoned.

It felt a little like walking through a ghost town or in an episode of the Walking Dead.

So why is Waveland such a historical place, why did it feel like a ghost town? As it turns out, Waveland was ground zero for Hurricane Katrina. In fact, in one night over 85% of the houses in Waveland were WIPED OUT!

Later that day we headed to nearby Bay St. Louis to eat on the water and explore the area. We enjoyed spending a day at the beach and exploring the city.

They have a beautiful fishing pier for the public overlooking the beach and bridge.

We saw a lot of boats and kayakers come through.

We ate some great food, played some corn hole against the locals and explored downtown Bay St Louis.

They’ve got great hiking and biking trails on the Gulf.

The next day I wanted to see more of the Katrina damage so I went driving around the town of Waveland. It didn’t take long to find abandoned houses and boats in trees.

It seems like someone was living for awhile in this shack where their home once was. 

I went inside this house to see the damage. It looks as though the water from Katrina threw things all over.

Here’s another house I explored. It looks nice from the outside, but from the inside you can tell the water ran everywhere in here.

10 years later and there is still a ton of rebuilding and construction going on. Visiting somewhere like this makes your heart go out to the people who lost their homes and businesses.

I understand why it is currently still so empty. I’m sure people who lived here have an emotional connection, but why would you want to rebuild knowing that it could all happen again. Why would the insurance companies make the rates affordable so the rest of the population has to absorb the cost for someone to live in an area that they know Hurricanes cause damage.

The risk of living in an area that could be wiped out overnight probably isn’t the best investment. Although I would NEVER buy a home here due to the risk, it’s a gorgeous place to RV!

We actually went down road to check out an RV Park on the Gulf and walk the beach for sunset.

The sunset was out of this world! The clouds kept changing colors right in front of our eyes. 

On our way out of town we parked the RV on the side of a road where I saw pics from 10 years ago with 30 ft of water where houses use to be.