The World War II National Submarine Memorial West is on station, near the intersection of Seal Beach Boulevard and Forrestal Lane. This memorial recalls the sacrifice of US submariners in World War II, one of the most effective fighting forces of the war in any theater.

The RMS Queen Mary was once one of the largest and fastest ocean liners in the world, and retired to Long Beach as a hotel, museum, and event center many years ago. Next to the Queen Mary is the B-427 Scorpion, a Soviet submarine once the cutting edge of the USSR's attack submarine forces.

The Long Beach Museum of Art includes collections of decorative art, 20th Century European art, and Californian art. The LBMA also runs education programs for children.

The Museum of Latin American Art is one of the larger museums in Long Beach, and features Latin American art in many styles. MOLAA also hosts several art education programs and events year round.

The Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum (PIEAM), in Long Beach, features exactly that, the art of various people of the Pacific Islands, including Fiji, Hawaii, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Northern Marianas Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, and sometimes other Pacific Islands, such as Taiwan.

The International Surfing Museum, in Huntington Beach, is all about surfing, surfing history and culture, with displays on the great surfers of the sport. Paddle by and hang.

The Heritage Museum of Orange County is a natural history and culture museum focused on Orange County itself, with a historic house, items from the past, and historic gardens and orchards.

The Orange County Museum of Art is a modern and contemporary art museum with a strong education program, including Thursday evening lectures, artists' talks, and special activities for children.

The Bowers Museum is an Orange County Museum with an extensive collection of art and artifacts, and a strong education program, with lectures, classes, and child education. Bowes also hosts the Kidseum, an art and culture museum geared to children.

The Discovery Science Center is a hands-on science and technology museum in Santa Ana for families and youth. The museum has extensive education programming, including camps, after school classes, outreach, and many kinds of exhibits and activities. This is the museum with the big black cube you can see from I-5 - it's actually a solar concentrator.

The Lyon Air Museum shows a small but very cool collection of 1930s and 1940s aircraft, military vehicles, military motorcycles, and civilian automobiles at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana.

The Los Angeles Maritime Museum, in San Pedro, showcases LA and general US maritime history, with a large collection of scale models (including the Poseidon, from The Poseidon Adventure) exhibits on the fishing industry and on commercial diving, and the flying bridge of the USS Los Angeles.

The Port of Los Angeles is one of the largest and busiest in the world, but it does have space for the USS Iowa and SS Lane Victory. The Iowa was one of the principle battleships of World War Two, the Korean War, and was active as recently as the 1990s; it is today a museum ship at the Pacific Battleship Center. The Lane Victory is one of the few remaining Victory-class ships from World War Two, and has been featured in several major films. The two ships are both in San Pedro docks, but not very close to each other.

The California Science Center is not in the Orange County area, it is in deep Los Angeles, but people interested in seeing historic artifacts of the Space Race may want to check it out. The "ScienCenter" is about half an hour from Fort MacArthur station or about twenty minutes from main base, and showcases a number of aircraft and spacecraft, systems, and other displays (including the space shuttle Endeavor). The Center has a large number of other science exhibits and activities, and is located in Exposition Park, which is also the location of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, and the California African American Museum.

The Fort MacArthur Military Museum is on the grounds of the former Fort MacArthur (named for General Douglas MacArthur's once famous father, Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., recipient of the Medal of Honor), and includes militaria from across the lifetime of the fort, 1914 to 1974, as well as the shore battery fire control stations, pre-WWII barracks, and a radio room of various military radios of the 20th Century.

The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is only a block south of Fort MacArthur housing, and features jellyfish, grunion running, and local marine life exhibits.