Things to do in United States Minor Outlying Islands

Over a million Laysan albatrosses nest on Sand Island each winter, filling the air with their honking courtship dances.

Scattered across Sand and Eastern Islands sit rusting Quonset huts, gun emplacements, and an airstrip from the June 1942 naval battle that turned the Pacific War.

Virtually untouched by human activity, Kingman Reef's steep coral walls drop into crystalline blue water teeming with gray reef sharks, manta rays, and massive schools of jacks.

This flat, uninhabited coral island was the intended destination of Amelia Earhart's 1937 round-the-world flight.

Palmyra's interconnected lagoons shelter some of the healthiest coral reefs in the central Pacific, with over 130 species of coral and 400 species of fish.

A World War II tugboat lies upright in shallow water inside Palmyra's lagoon, encrusted with colorful corals and sponges.

Baker Island supports one of the largest red-footed booby colonies in the central Pacific, with thousands of pairs nesting in low scrub near the old World War II runway.

A deteriorating coral airstrip built by the U.S. military during World War II cuts across Jarvis Island's flat, barren landscape.

Hawaiian green sea turtles haul themselves onto Midway's white sand beaches between May and October to lay eggs.

Johnston Atoll served as a storage and incineration site for chemical munitions from the 1970s through 2000.

Palmyra's labyrinthine network of lagoons, sandbars, and mangrove-lined channels can be explored by kayak at slack tide.

Crumbling stone walls, rusted rail tracks, and cisterns left by 19th-century guano mining companies dot Navassa's steep limestone cliffs.

The Laysan duck, one of the world's rarest ducks with a wild population of under 1,000, was introduced to Midway to safeguard the species.

Schools of dozens of gray reef sharks patrol the outer reef walls of Kingman in some of the clearest water on Earth.

Palmyra hosts one of the healthiest remaining populations of coconut crabs, the world's largest land arthropod that can grow to over three feet in leg span.

Concrete gun emplacements, bombed-out hangars, and the remains of a Japanese-held garrison dot Wake Island's three islets.

The fringing reef around Baker Island drops off into turquoise shallows populated by reef fish, giant clams, and occasional green sea turtles.

Male magnificent frigatebirds inflate their brilliant red throat pouches to attract mates in a spectacular courtship display.

A small stone and concrete navigational beacon called 'Earhart Light' was constructed to guide Amelia Earhart to Howland Island in 1937.

The Nature Conservancy has spent years removing invasive coconut palms and restoring native Pisonia forest on Palmyra.

Navassa Island rises abruptly from the Caribbean Sea with near-vertical 100-foot limestone cliffs battered by heavy swells.

Eastern Island's overgrown runways and scattered aircraft revetments recall Midway's role as a critical forward airbase.

The critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal, with a population of only about 1,400, regularly hauls out on Midway's sand beaches.

Beyond the lagoon, Palmyra's outer reef wall plunges thousands of feet into the open Pacific.

The Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium operates a field station supporting studies on climate change, coral health, and island ecology.