United States Minor Outlying Islands Travel Guide & Community

United States Minor Outlying Islands is a travel destination in North America. Its capital is Washington, D.C.. February and January are its two best months to visit, ranked on 1991–2020 climate averages.

Top places to visit in United States Minor Outlying Islands

• Palmyra Atoll (natural) — Remote coral atoll in the Pacific 1,600 km south of Hawaii — a US National Wildlife Refuge administered by the US Fish & Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy; the pristine lagoon and surrounding reef are a critical scientific benchmark for pristine coral ecosystems; accessible only to permitted researchers and conservation volunteers.
• Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (natural) — World's largest colony of Laysan albatrosses nesting on the broad sandy plains of Sand and Eastern Islands — iconic World War II battle site where US naval forces halted the Japanese advance in June 1942; the atoll now hosts volunteer programmes for albatross monitoring and the USS Missouri anchor winch still lies on the reef.
• Johnston Atoll (natural) — Isolated atoll in the central Pacific, a former top-secret US military installation used for nuclear testing and chemical weapons disposal — now a National Wildlife Refuge; the surrounding 130,000 km² of ocean is a US Fish and Wildlife Service closed area protecting extensive coral reef ecosystems and huge schools of protected pelagic species.
• Wake Island (landmark) — Tiny triangular coral atoll halfway between Honolulu and Guam — the site of a legendary 16-day defence by a small US Marine garrison after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941; a US Air Force base now occupies the island and maintains the aerodrome used as a refuelling stop for transpacific military flights.
• Battle of Midway Historic Site (landmark) — The reef, lagoon shallows, and coastline of Midway Atoll where the pivotal 1942 naval air battle was fought — Japanese aircraft wreckage has been documented on the seafloor; the atoll visitor centre and annual commemorations honour the 307 American servicemen lost in the battle widely regarded as the turning point of the Pacific War.
• Howland Island (natural) — Tiny equatorial atoll near the dateline, historic site of Amelia Earhart's failed 1937 navigation objective — a lighthouse monument called Itasca marks the spot where the US Coast Guard cutter waited in vain for her Electra; the island is now a National Wildlife Refuge for nesting seabirds and green turtles.
• Baker Island (natural) — Uninhabited flat coral island just north of the equator in the central Pacific — during World War II the island hosted a US airstrip; now a National Wildlife Refuge where vast numbers of breeding seabirds — red-footed boobies, great frigatebirds, and sooty terns — crowd every available nesting surface.
• Kingman Reef (natural) — Nearly submerged reef enclosing a deep lagoon between Hawaii and Samoa — the reef rim shelters only a few acres of dry land; the surrounding area is a National Wildlife Refuge with extraordinary coral diversity; Kingman Reef has been studied as one of the last reef systems outside direct human influence in the Pacific.
• Jarvis Island (natural) — Isolated flat coral island on the equator in the south-central Pacific — a former 19th-century guano mining site; now a US National Wildlife Refuge hosting one of the most intact seabird nesting communities in the central Pacific; large nesting aggregations of sooty terns, brown noddies, and Christmas shearwaters cover the island interior.
• Navassa Island (natural) — Rugged limestone island between Haiti and Jamaica, administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service — once the site of a US lighthouse staffed until 1996; a National Wildlife Refuge since 1999 with recovering reef that includes some of the most biodiverse coral communities in the Caribbean, largely undisturbed since the lighthouse closure.