NATCHEZ — Linda and George Smith came to Natchez to flee Hurricane Irma, but the couple say they just cannot leave.

The couple evacuated their home in Miami. When choosing a destination, Linda Smith said she just pointed to Mississippi and told her husband, “Let’s go there.”

She, her husband, three cats and a parrot loaded into the car on Sept. 6 and drove 22 hours to Dawson, Ala., where they stayed one night before driving to Natchez.

They planned on staying just three nights, but Smith said she did not want to go.

“We like everything,” she said. “First of all, the people. I can’t say enough. We’ve been here for five days, and we’ve made more friends than we ever had in Miami.”

Already, she said, friends have invited them over for dinner and shown them around town.

Smith said when she and her husband toured the antebellum houses and went antiques-shopping downtown, they would find themselves spending hours in one place just talking to people.

Their home back in Miami, she said, sustained no permanent damage. The power was out for only 10 hours, and the water and gas have already been reconnected.

“My neighbors are calling up and asking, ‘When are you coming back?’” she said. “We told them: ‘We are just having fun. We want to stay longer.’”

Smith said she loves the trees and greenery in Natchez — “everything we don’t have in Miami,” she said.

She and her husband own a seller page with Amazon, where they sell beard, skin and haircare products for men.

The brand, The Beard Legacy, allows the couple to work from home in Miami — or, hopefully, in Natchez.

The couple plans to leave town Monday, but Smith said they’re coming back.

“We’ve been just driving by and we really fell in love with one property,” she said.

If she could have any home in Natchez, she said, she would want somewhere downtown, “where everybody could come visit me, and I could cook for everyone,” she said.

The house she found, she said, would make a perfect second home.

Though she’s only been here a few days, Smith said she feels happy here.

“People from here just make us feel right at home,” she said. “We know everybody’s name. Everybody knows our name.”

They have to go back to Miami for now, but Smith said she hopes Natchez keeps the originality she came to love while they’re gone.

“It’s amazing here, and I believe it’s just a gem that still needs to be discovered by the United States and the world.”