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Must See Guide

U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

Nine scattered specks of coral and rock, almost all wildlife refuges or military bases, where the honest travel advice is that you will very probably never land.

Best time to go
There is no tourist season; the few permitted trips to Midway and Palmyra have historically run in the northern spring and autumn, outside the worst storm months
Currency
US Dollar (USD)
Reading time
7 min
Language
English

The U.S. Minor Outlying Islands are not a place in the usual sense but a statistical grouping: eight Pacific islands and atolls strung across thousands of kilometres of open ocean, plus Navassa Island in the Caribbean between Jamaica and Haiti. None has a permanent civilian population. Most are national wildlife refuges, several sit inside the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, and the one with a runway long enough to matter, Wake Island, is a military airfield. They have no shared government, no capital and no tourist office, and each is managed by whichever federal agency, or in Palmyra's case conservation charity, looks after it.

That makes this an unusual guide. It is honest about the fact that, in 2026, almost nobody can visit. Landing on the refuges needs a special use permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, issued for research, management or, very occasionally, education and media work, and those permits are deliberately scarce: the islands hold some of the most intact seabird colonies and coral reefs left on Earth, and a single rat or invasive ant arriving on a boot can undo decades of restoration. What follows describes each island, why it matters, who controls it, and the realistic routes, if any, by which a traveller might see it. The places run roughly west to east across the Pacific, ending in the Caribbean. If you want an American Pacific island you can actually fly to, our Guam and Oahu guides are the place to start.

The top 9 in U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

  1. 1

    Wake Island

    A V-shaped atoll of three low islets in the western Pacific, Wake is administered by the U.S. Air Force, with day-to-day operations handled by contractors, and serves as an emergency and refuelling airfield. It was the scene of a bitter defence by U.S. Marines and civilian construction workers in December 1941 before its capture by Japan, and wartime gun emplacements, wrecks and memorials remain. The surrounding waters form part of the Pacific Remote Islands monument. There is no public access: entry requires military authorisation, and the only people who land are personnel, contractors and occasional official or veterans' delegations.

  2. 2

    Johnston Atoll

    Some 1,300 kilometres south-west of Honolulu, Johnston was for decades a military site, used for nuclear tests in the early 1960s and later for storing and incinerating chemical weapons. After a long clean-up the base closed in 2004, and the atoll is now a national wildlife refuge managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, valued for its seabirds and reefs. Volunteer teams have in recent years camped there for months to eradicate invasive yellow crazy ants. Access is by permit only and requires a private vessel or charter, as the old runway is no longer maintained for civilian use.

  3. 3

    Midway Atoll

    At the far north-western end of the Hawaiian chain, Midway is the only one of these islands that has ever had a regular visitor programme. It is a national wildlife refuge and the Battle of Midway National Memorial, inside the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a UNESCO World Heritage Site co-managed by federal agencies and the State of Hawaiʻi. Each winter around a million albatrosses, mostly Laysan with some black-footed, nest here, among them Wisdom, the oldest known wild bird, who has been returning for more than seven decades. Restored wartime buildings, gun emplacements and the memorial recall the June 1942 battle in which U.S. carrier aircraft sank four Japanese carriers, a turning point of the Pacific war.

    Public visits ended in 2012 when funding for the airfield and visitor services was cut, and as of 2026 there is no general visitor programme. Small numbers of volunteers, researchers, contractors and permitted educators still go, flying in on charters from Honolulu. Check the refuge's own pages before believing any tour advertisement.

    TipFish and Wildlife Service volunteer stints for albatross counts or habitat work are the most realistic way in; they are competitive and usually last several weeks.

  4. 4

    Kingman Reef

    The northernmost of the Line Islands is barely land at all: a triangular reef with a few strips of coral rubble that are often awash at high tide. Its coral communities, dominated by sharks and other top predators, are regarded as among the most pristine in the world. It is a national wildlife refuge closed to the public, visited only by research cruises.

  5. 5

    Palmyra Atoll

    Palmyra is the most lush of the group: a ring of some two dozen islets thick with coconut palms and Pisonia forest around green lagoons, home to red-footed boobies, coconut crabs and abundant reef sharks. It is the only incorporated U.S. territory, and ownership is shared: The Nature Conservancy owns Cooper Island, where it runs a research station with partners in the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium, while the Fish and Wildlife Service manages the surrounding refuge. Rats were eradicated in 2011, and the forest is being restored from coconut monoculture.

    Visits are limited to scientists, staff and a small number of Conservancy-approved guests, and private yachts need advance permission to anchor. Arrival is normally by small chartered aircraft from Honolulu to the old wartime airstrip.

  6. 6

    Howland Island

    A flat, treeless island just north of the equator, Howland is famous as the destination Amelia Earhart never reached in July 1937; the remains of Earhart Light, a day beacon, still stand. Before that it was mined for guano and briefly settled by young Hawaiian colonists in the 1930s to bolster the U.S. claim. Today it is a wildlife refuge thronged with seabirds, closed to the public.

  7. 7

    Baker Island

    Seventy kilometres south of Howland, Baker shares its story of guano digging, Hawaiian colonists and a short-lived wartime airfield. It is now a refuge known for its seabird colonies and shallow reefs, visited every few years by Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA survey teams.

  8. 8

    Jarvis Island

    Alone in the equatorial Pacific, Jarvis sits in a current upwelling that feeds dense reef life and huge colonies of sooty terns. Ruins of the colonists' settlement of Millersville and a day beacon survive. Like its neighbours it is a refuge in the marine monument, closed to all but permitted research visits.

Who runs what

Midway, Johnston, Howland, Baker, Jarvis, Kingman and Navassa are national wildlife refuges under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Wake is run by the U.S. Air Force, though its waters and those of the Line and Phoenix island refuges belong to the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, which was expanded in 2014. Palmyra is split between The Nature Conservancy and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Midway also falls within Papahānaumokuākea, overseen jointly by NOAA, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the State of Hawaiʻi. The Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs coordinates policy, but there is no local government anywhere.

Getting around

For a traveller, the realistic options are few. Volunteering with the Fish and Wildlife Service is the main path to Midway or, occasionally, to Johnston. Research is the path to Palmyra, Kingman and the equatorial islands: university and government scientists join NOAA cruises or the Palmyra station. Yachts crossing the Pacific sometimes seek permission to stop at Palmyra; arriving without it is not allowed, and the remote refuges are strictly off limits. Ham radio expeditions, known as DXpeditions, have been granted rare permits for Baker, Howland and Navassa, but such trips need years of planning and close biosecurity rules. Wake is reachable only on military orders. A few expedition cruises sail past these islands without landing.

When to go

There is no visitor season to plan around. Midway's albatross season runs roughly November to July, with chicks fledging in early summer, and the old visitor programme ran in that window. The equatorial islands are hot all year and outside the main cyclone belts, while Wake and Midway can be hit by typhoons and winter storms. Navassa sits in the Atlantic hurricane zone, June to November.

Local tips

  • Ignore any operator promising a "Midway tour" until you have checked the refuge website; if a programme returns, the Fish and Wildlife Service will announce it.
  • Biosecurity on permitted trips is strict: new or frozen clothing, sealed luggage and seed checks are normal, because invasive species are the biggest threat to these islands.
  • The wildlife comes to you elsewhere: Laysan albatrosses also nest on the north shore of Kauaʻi and at Kaʻena Point on Oahu, which anyone can visit.
  • In Honolulu, the Pacific Aviation Museum and USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor tell much of the Midway and Wake story.

Wildlife and conservation

These islands matter far beyond their size. Midway's albatross colony is the largest in the world, while the equatorial reefs show what coral systems look like with their sharks and big fish intact. Their main threats are invasive species, plastic carried by currents (dead albatross chicks on Midway are often found full of it) and warming seas. Rats have been cleared from Palmyra, Wake and other islands, and Midway's mouse eradication project has been aimed at stopping mice that began attacking nesting albatrosses. That fragility is the main reason the doors stay shut.

A short history

Most of the Pacific islands were claimed under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which allowed U.S. citizens to take unclaimed islands for fertiliser mining. In the 1930s, young Hawaiian men were settled on Howland, Baker and Jarvis to support American claims to air routes. The Second World War turned Midway and Wake into battlegrounds, and the Cold War brought nuclear and chemical work to Johnston. Since the end of the twentieth century, nearly all have shifted from strategic outposts to protected areas.