There are several Virginia Peninsula historical military locations from the Revolutionary War and Civil War, and more fairly nearby, including Fort Monroe, Fort Wool, Fort Story, and several historic battles, most famously the Battle of Hampton Roads. The Revolutionary War Yorktown Campaign, ending with the final clash of the War, the Battle of Yorktown, was fought in this area. The Civil War Peninsula Campaign was also fought in the area, including the Second Battle of Yorktown.

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.

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 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 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 Virginia Living Museum is a science center focusing mainly on biological sciences, including an aquarium, aviary, botanical preserve, with a science center and planetarium. There are many live animals and plenty to keep a young (and youthful) mind active.

The Ferguson Center for the Arts is a theater and theater center in Newport News, with various performing arts groups, classic to rock music, drama and comedy, dance, and lecturing speakers, and a community center with rehearsal space, practice rooms, dance hall space, and costume and prop shops.

The Virginia Air and Space Center is a museum in downtown Hampton specializing in presenting air and space technology and exploration. It is also 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, many actual World War Two aircraft, real and replica lunar landing craft, and examples from across 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.

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.

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, and the battleship USS Wisconsin. The museum also hosts camps and other educational activities.

The US Army Transportation Museum, on post, preserves the history and much of the equipment and vehicles of the military logistics and transport service. Transportation is one of the most basic necessary tasks of the Army, and this museum remembers. Exhibits and displays cover the efforts of the Army to transport supplies and soldiers from here to there quickly, efficiently, and whole. Among the exhibits is the Eve of Destruction, a Vietnam War era gun truck, a converted M54, armored with salvaged steel armor and a brace of machine guns, a ground level solution to the dangers of transporting cargo through hostile territory. Other exhibits include displays on the Civil War, World War II's giant transport challenges, and the more recent combat theaters in the Middle East, and vehicles from many periods.

The Hampton Roads Maritime Museum is on the Nauticus site, dedicated to the history of the US Navy in the Hampton Roads area, with exhibitions and displays on individual periods from the American Revolutionary War to the end of the Cold War.

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.

Colonial Williamsburg is a large living history town/park in Williamsburg, one of the oldest settlements in the US. This area contains several blocks of 18th Century pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary era buildings, people, and activity, widely regarded as some of the best living history settings around.

Virginia Lighthouses: Virginia has many miles of coast, with lots of navigational hazards, and historically has had a large number of lighthouses. A road trip for viewing or photographing project should be easy to pull off, with plenty of lighthouses on wind-swept coasts with a little web research.

The Newport News Victory Arch was first put up at the end of World War I to honor the returning veterans. The monument has been rebuilt and added to over the years, including an Eternal Flame, and has now stood in one form or another for almost a hundred years.

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 is where many of the local slaves first heard a public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.