Published: 6/26/23

 Visiting Pearl Harbor Tips: Everything You Need To Know

If you’re a first-time Hawaii visitor, chances are, you need some tips for visiting Pearl Harbor National Memorial. After all, a visit to Pearl Harbor features on many, many Hawaiian itineraries. With more than 1.8 million visitors annually, Pearl Harbor National Memorial is Hawaii’s number one tourist attraction.

Although more than 80 years have passed since Japanese fighter pilots attacked Naval Station Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many Americans like myself feel an intrinsic pull to the National Memorial. This date – which has indeed lived on in infamy – profoundly altered the course of my own family’s history. I couldn’t imagine going to Hawaii and not paying my respects at Pearl Harbor National Memorial.

However, visiting Pearl Harbor is a little more complicated than just showing up. If you’re going to be one of the National Memorial’s nearly 5000 daily visitors sometime soon, there are several need-to-know tips for visiting Pearl Harbor.

Don’t worry, this post covers everything you need to make your visit to Pearl Harbor seamless and meaningful. Read on for my best tips for visiting Pearl Harbor National Memorial. 

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Pin these important tips for visiting Pearl Harbor National Memorial

A Brief Introduction to Pearl Harbor National Memorial

If you’re looking for tips for visiting Pearl Harbor National Memorial, you probably know the location’s backstory. But just in case you’re unsure what makes Pearl Harbor such a big deal, allow me:

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese military launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Naval Base in Oahu Island’s Pearl Harbor near Honolulu. At the time, Hawaii was a U.S. territory. The attack killed 2403 individuals and wounded another 1178. It also launched the United States in World War II.

The attack sunk three battleships docked in Pearl Harbor: the USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, and USS Utah. With 1177 crewmen dead as a result of the attack, the USS Arizona suffered the worst loss of life. The Japanese bombers also hit the island’s Hickam and Wheeler Air Fields.

Americans have been able to pay their respects at the site since 1962 when the USS Arizona Memorial opened. The National Park Service now manages the site which includes the Pearl Harbor National Memorial Visitor Center, USS Arizona Memorial, USS Oklahoma Memorial, USS Utah Memorial, officer bungalows, and three mooring quays.

Although not officially part of the National Memorial, most visitors to Pearl Harbor also visit at least one of the three adjacent museums: Battleship Missouri Memorial, Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum, and the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. These museums are considered Pearl Harbor Historic Sites and are managed by independent nonprofits.

The USS Bowfin submarine is now home to the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum. The sub is one of the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites you can tour during your visit.

Where Exactly Is Pearl Harbor National Memorial

You probably already know that Pearl Harbor is in Hawaii, but you might not know where exactly to find the National Memorial. After all, the Hawaiian archipelago contains 137 islands. It’s both a very small and very large place.

You’ll find Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island. Oahu is the population and government center of Hawaii as well as the base of the United States Pacific Command. All six branches of the United States military have a base on Oahu.

Specifically, Pearl Harbor is on Oahu’s southeast coast in a three-pronged inlet about 7 miles west of downtown Honolulu. Ford Island sits in the middle of Pearl Harbor. This 441-acre island features prominently in a visit to Pearl Harbor.

While the actual National Memorial is located on the main land, you need to take a boat to the USS Arizona Memorial and a free shuttle bus takes you to various points of interest on Ford Island, including the Battleship Missouri Memorial and Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.

The grounds at Pearl Harbor National Memorial feature several outdoor exhibits so be sure to wear sunscreen!

How To Get To Pearl Harbor National Memorial

If you’re in Hawaii, it’s not hard to visit Pearl Harbor National Memorial. And yes, I do mean all of Hawaii, not just if you happen to be on Oahu or in Honolulu.

Plane

Pearl Harbor is only about a 10-minute drive from Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. If you’re staying on another Hawaiian island, island-hopper flights to Honolulu run about every hour and only take 25 – 50 minutes. (Seriously – that’s faster than my drive to get groceries!)

When I was planning my Kauai itinerary, I hemmed and hawed about whether we could travel to and from Honolulu in one day just to visit Pearl Harbor. Now that I’ve visited, I can see that Pearl Harbor’s totally do-able as an island-hopping day trip.

However, I’m not sure it’s ideal. Between getting to and from the airports and actually visiting Pearl Harbor, you’re looking at a 10-12 hour day. Another bummer is that you’ll be at the mercy of airports and museum concession stands for your meals.

Drive

If you’re renting a car on Oahu you can absolutely drive to Pearl Harbor. The National Memorial is located about 11 miles away from Honolulu’s tourist epicenter – Waikiki Beach. If you’re staying outside of Honolulu, you’re only ever at most about an hour’s drive from Pearl Harbor National Memorial wherever you find yourself on Oahu.

FYI: in April 2023, the National Memorial started charging a $7 daily parking fee.

Rideshare

We didn’t have a car in Honolulu, so we just took a Lyft to and from our off-beach Waikiki hotel – Surfjack Hotel and Swim Club.

For a one-way rideshare from Waikiki to Pearl Harbor National Memorial expect to pay $30-40 depending on the time of day. While this feels a little steep, it is a 25-minute ride. We had no problem snagging a ride out to Pearl Harbor, but I do recommend scheduling your return to avoid a long wait outside the visitor center. (Ask me how I know!) 

Bus

If you’re a budget traveler, taking Honolulu’s public transportation – theBus – is definitely the cheapest way to get to Pearl Harbor National Memorial. It costs $3 one way to ride.

While you don’t have to transfer, the bus ride (take either #20 or #42 from Waikiki) takes about an hour, but word on the street is that theBus often runs behind schedule. You’ll definitely want to build in a buffer so you don’t miss your USS Arizona Memorial tour time!

Looking across Pearl Harbor from the National Memorial to the USS Arizona Memorial and Battleship Missouri Memorial off the shores of Ford Island. The massive white ball on the horizon is a ballistic missile radar.

My Best Tips for Visiting Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Plan ahead

While Pearl Harbor National Memorial is totally free to visit and you can visit any time during operating hours (7 a.m. – 5 p.m., every day), my number one tip for visiting Pearl Harbor is to plan ahead. With a little extra effort, you can elevate your experience from good to great. Read on to see what I mean!

The memorial wall in the USS Arizona Memorial 

Reserve USS Arizona Memorial tickets

Most importantly, you’ll want reservations to guarantee you see the USS Arizona Memorial. The memorial is actually located in Pearl Harbor above the sunken battleship. The Navy brings out visitors (up to 145 per boat ride) to the memorial every 15 minutes from 8 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. every day.

Tours run every quarter hour and last about 45 minutes. You have a brief orientation in the theatre and spend 20 minutes on the actual memorial. The rest of the tour is either queuing for or riding the boat across the bay. To guarantee a spot on one of those boats, you should make an advanced reservation.

You can make your USS Arizona Memorial reservations starting 56 days in advance (8 weeks) at 3 p.m. HST. Coincidentally, I started seriously planning our Hawaiian trip about 60 days out, so I just set a calendar reminder and easily snagged reservations for my desired date as soon as they opened up. The tickets are technically free, but you do pay a $1 online processing fee per ticket.

Didn’t plan super far in advance? At 3 p.m. HST, last minute tickets are released for the next day only.

If you also miss out on the next-day window, you can always join the standby line. If you’re lucky, some of the boats won’t actually be maxed out with passengers and you can squeeze on. When we visited in December, everyone in the standby line was being let on.

This clearly irked the volunteer docent, but it’s good to know you still have a chance of visiting the memorial even if you didn’t make reservations. Still, if you’re an anxious traveler like me and really want to see the memorial, definitely grab those tickets well ahead of time.

Decide if you want to see the USS Utah and Oklahoma Memorials

While not nearly as popular as the USS Arizona Memorial, you can also visit the USS Utah and Oklahoma Memorials. However, unless you have an active-duty military ID, access to these two memorials on Ford Island is limited to the Ford Island Bus Program.

This 90-minute, ranger-led bus tour is limited to 25 participants and runs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 3 p.m. Like the USS Arizona Memorial, the bus tour is free except for a $1 per person reservation fee. Tickets release two weeks in advance at 3 p.m. HST.

We didn’t do the bus tour during our visit, but I could definitely see us returning to check it out.

Prepare for the stringent Pearl Harbor bag policy

Pearl Harbor National Memorial doesn’t mess around with bags.

Seriously, a 1.5″ x 2.25″ x 5.5” bag – so basically a wallet – is the largest bag allowed inside. You can bring clear stadium style bags and clear water bottles. But really the easiest thing to do is not bring any bags at all, so plan accordingly when you pack for your Hawaii trip!

I just wore shorts with deep pockets. Honestly, it was kind of lovely to explore without the burden of a backpack or crossbody bag. I did carry around a clear water bottle all day though.

Don’t worry, if you’re visiting Pearl Harbor as an island-hopping day trip or simply forget about the bag policy, there are baggage storage areas for visitors.

On the deck of the USS Missouri at the Battleship Missouri Memorial in Pearl Harbor. World War II officially ended aboard the USS Missouri off the coast of Tokyo, Japan on September 2, 1945. Now the USS Missouri is moored next to the USS Arizona. The two ships symbolize the start and end of American involvement in World War II .

Dress respectably and smart

After all, you’re visiting the final resting place of more than 1100 American sailors. You don’t need to dress formally; I just wore a solid tank top and linen shorts. However, you absolutely don’t want to show up in swimwear.

Since you’re really only allowed a small clutch bag, it makes sense to wear an outfit with deep pockets so you can cart around your ID, credit card, and phone hands free.

Visit the free indoor exhibits as early as possible

We arrived at Pearl Harbor National Memorial around 9 a.m. and spent the hour before our USS Arizona Tour wandering the grounds and enjoying the outdoor exhibits.

We headed into the two indoor exhibit areas towards the end of our free time and I immediately wished we’d gone there first when crowds were significantly thinner. The indoor exhibits have fascinating audiovisual components and compelling artifacts such as a sailor’s blood-stained uniform that was actually worn on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor.

View of the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor

Visit shuttle stops in the order the bus stops at them

This is a no brainer, but since the buses travel in a loop, once you board the free Ford Island shuttle bus get off at each stop as you reach it. The shuttle runs approximately every 15 minutes and stops at two Pearl Harbor Historic Sites: the Battleship Missouri Memorial and the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.

It takes about 10 minutes to drive across the bridge from the Pearl Harbor National Memorial on the mainland to Ford Island. The bus first stops at the Missouri and then the Aviation Museum.

If you go to the Aviation Museum first, you will go all the way back across the bridge to the National Memorial and then grab another shuttle to get back over to the Missouri.

Looking at aircraft inside the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum on Ford Island. When you visit, be sure to read the crazy story about the Japanese fighter pilot who crash landed on sparsely populated Niihau Island off of Kauai after the attack on Pearl Harbor!

Consider if the bundled museum ticket is really right for you

The three museums at Pearl Harbor National Memorial – the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum on the USS Bowfin, Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, and the Battleship Missouri Memorial – are all run by independent nonprofits. To keep these museum ships and exhibits in tip-top order, they all charge fairly hefty admission prices. You’re looking at $35 for general admission to board the Missouri.

If you’re planning to only visit Pearl Harbor once you may prefer to buy the bundled “Passport to Pearl Harbor” ticket at the start of the day. The ticket gets you into all three museums for $89.99 and includes an audio tour of the National Memorial. This will save you . . . a whopping $4.

Just be wary of information overload . . . . 

We didn’t purchase the audio tour and skipped the USS Bowfin submarine museum because I’d already been in a submarine in Chicago’s Museum of Science Industry. (I don’t know – sometimes travel decisions that made sense in the moment don’t really hold up in hindsight . . . )

Even so, we both hit our max for interpretative information halfway through the Aviation Museum.
In the end, I was very glad I opted to pay for each museum individually rather than feeling obligated to “get my money’s worth” with the Passport Ticket.

Eat a big meal before visiting

The food game at Pearl Harbor is not strong. There’s also something that feels a little off about enjoying a shave ice next to the spot where World War II started and thousands lost their lives.

Happily, we’d indulged in a large breakfast before our day at Pearl Harbor and that loco moco nearly held me through our entire 5 hour visit and the commutes to and from the memorial.

FAQs about visiting Pearl Harbor National Memorial

How much does it cost to visit Pearl Harbor National Memorial?

It’s completely free to visit Pearl Harbor National Memorial! However, if you make an online reservation for either the USS Arizona Memorial or Ford Island Bus Program, there’s a $1 reservation fee per person. If you park, there’s a $7 daily fee.

Are the museums free at Pearl Harbor National Memorial?

The inside and outside exhibits at Pearl Harbor National Memorial are completely free. However the three museums at the memorial – Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum (on the USS Bowfin), Battleship Missouri Memorial, and Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum – are all operated by independent nonprofits and charge admission. If you plan to visit all three, you can save a little money by buying the Passport to Pearl Harbor at the first one you visit or at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial Visitor Center.

How long does it take to visit Pearl Harbor?

Budget at least 1.5 hours for your visit. It’s recommended you arrive an hour before your scheduled USS Arizona Memorial tour and the tour itself lasts about 45 minutes so you’re already over 90 minutes right there. Personally, we stayed about 5 hours and didn’t even go to one of the museums.

When is the best time of day to visit Pearl Harbor National Memorial?

I booked our USS Arizona Memorial tour for 10 a.m. figuring we still might be a little tuckered out from our long flight a couple days before. However, this seemed to put us at the memorial during peak busyness. Crowds peaked around noon and were definitely tapering off by the time we left in the early afternoon.

Instead of doing what I did, lean into that jetlag and book the 8 a.m. tour. If you’re anything like us, you’ll probably be awake at 5 a.m. anyway. By being one of the first people at the memorial you’ll get to enjoy uncrowded grounds and exhibits and really get to explore the memorials and museums on your own terms.

If you prefer to visit later, keep in mind that the last admission to the historic sites is 3 p.m.

How far in advance of your USS Arizona Memorial tour time do you need to arrive at Pearl Harbor?

All official communication from the National Park Service recommends you arrive one hour before your tour. Rule follower that I am, we arrived a little more than a hour before our 10 a.m. tour.

However, if you’ve followed my tips about dress and bags, you really don’t need to arrive an hour ahead of time. Without any bags and just one clear water bottle in tow, we breezed through security in a matter of seconds without having to faff about with bag checks. 

Can I bring food to Pearl Harbor National Memorial?

You can bring food into Pearl Harbor National Memorial, but it’s not allowed on any part of the USS Arizona Memorial tour. You can carry water in a clear water bottle everywhere at the Memorial. There are several water bottle filling stations around the memorial.

The holes in the glass in Hanger 79 at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum were caused by the first shots fired on American soil in World War II. 

One of the USS Arizona gun turrets is visible above the Pearl Harbor waterline 

Is Pearl Harbor worth visiting?

Absolutely! I couldn’t imagine going to Hawaii and not visiting Pearl Harbor. Similar to visiting Ground Zero the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City, I felt pulled to pay my respects to those who perished in an event that has become stitched into our national identity.

While I expected to find my visit to Pearl Harbor National Memorial interesting enough, I was unprepared for how much there is to do and see. I walked away with a much better understanding of the events of December 7, 1941 and a deep appreciation for those who went on to fight in World War II.

Many memorials simply don’t weather the test of time. If you go somewhere like Gettysburg, many of the early monuments now just feel like random pillars of stone. But Pearl Harbor feels like a living, breathing memorial where you truly honor those who lost their lives on one of the most impactful days in American history.

Rather than simply feeling like I’ve fulfilled some civic duty by visiting Pearl Harbor, I found the whole experience so fascinating that I hope to return someday to soak up even more of the information in the site’s museums and exhibits.

I hope you found this Pearl Harbor visitor guide helpful. If I’ve done my job, these tips for visiting Pearl Harbor have encouraged you to make your own journey to Honolulu to visit the Pearl Harbor National Memorial!