Hampton Museums cover many different subjects, from general history, to specific periods or subjects.

Air Power Park is a park, monument, and museum focusing on Virginia's role in air and space technology, history, and development. The museum has several rooms with exhibits on aircraft, aviation, NASA, and different historical periods. There are also several aircraft and rockets on display in the open park.

The Virginia Air and Space Center is a museum in downtown Hampton focused on, um, air and space technology exploration, and is the visitor's center for NASA's Langley Space Center. The Center has extensive displays of airplanes, jets, weapons, and spacecraft systems and training craft. The Center has a full sized replica of the Wright Flyer, actual World War Two aircraft, real and replica lunar landing craft, and examples from all eras of aviation history.

The Hampton History Museum is a general history museum in downtown Hampton, with some emphasis on the Civil War period, and of course mainly concerned with history in the city itself.

Emancipation Oak is an oak tree, now on the grounds of Hampton University, where slaves would once gather for illegal night classes, escaping slaves would gather in the Civil War to flee to Union safety, and where many of the local slaves first heard a public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Hampton has a full spectrum of retail stores in street and mall locations, all of whom have plenty of ads out.

The Mariner's Museum is a large, general maritime history museum in Newport News. It has an extensive collection of artifacts and displays on nautical subjects from the age of sail through to modern ocean shipping, including ship parts and parts of the USS Monitor, as well as a full sized replica.

Nauticus is a large museum and science center in Norfolk, educating on ocean life and maritime history. Exhibits include displays on the local seaports, historical displays, submersibles and deep sea exploration, several marine biology exhibits, the battleship USS Wisconsin. The museum also hosts camps and other educational activities. The Hampton Roads Maritime Museum is on the same site, dedicated to the history of the US Navy in the Hampton Roads area, with emphasis on specific periods from the American Revolutionary War to the end of the Cold War.

The Virginia War Museum, in Newport News, is a general US Armed Forces military history museum from Revolutionary times to the present, including a collection of tanks, cannon and other artillery, uniforms, historic rifles, women at war, and posters, plus a dedicated archive.

The Hampton University Museum focuses on native art from around the world, with an emphasis on African, Asian, Native American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and African-American art and fine art. It is located on the Hampton University campus, in the Huntington Building.

The Peninsula Fine Arts Center, in Newport News, is a regional fine arts museum and education center, with an extensive collection of local and regional art, and hosting public education programs, especially youth art education. This museum is on the grounds of the Maritime Museum.

The Chrysler Museum of Art is a large art museum in Norfolk with over thirty thousand items, covering five thousand years of history. It is undergoing renovations and mostly closed until August 2014, but the glass studio and related classes are open.

The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Reserve protects what remains of the Great Dismal Swamp, now a fairly small wetland area on the border of Virginia and North Carolina. The reserve parkland is available during daylight for bird watching, boating in Lake Drummond, canoeing, fishing and limited hunting.

Bluebird Gap Farm is a petting zoo, park, and show farm with a variety of domestic and harmless cute pettable animals, about 15 minutes from base.

Norfolk has a botanical garden, the Norfolk Botanical Garden, and a zoo, the Virginia Zoological Park, both about 45 minutes from base (but not in the same place). Both feature kids' programming, classes and camps.

Newport News Park is a large city park next to Fort Eustis and next to parts of Colonial National Historic Park, the site of much of the both of the Battles of Yorktown. Visitors to Newport News park can use the playgrounds, play disc golf, or use the archery range. Colonial Park visitors can see the location of General Washington's camp, and the site of the original Jamestown.

Colonial National Historic Park is in several parts in the area, connecting the three major historic sites of the area, Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, by the Colonial Parkway.

The area around the Virginia Peninsula has a few commercial amusement parks, for a fun day trip.

The Sandy Bottom Nature Park has two lakes, wetlands, trails, and non-motorized boating. Visitors can watch wildlife, fish, or picnic, and kids can play on the park playgrounds. This park is about 15 minutes from base.