Home to three museum ships (USS Yorktown, USS Laffey and USS Clamagore) and a Medal of Honor museum, Patriots Point is a must-see if you visit Charleston, South Carolina, and have an interest in military history. It is located in Mount Pleasant, at the mouth of the Cooper River on the Charleston Harbor, across from Charleston.

My husband visited the place before and loved the place so, he took me and my son there on our recent road trip to Charleston to celebrate my birthday.

It’s mine and my son’s first time to see an aircraft carrier, much less be on one. I have only seen one in the movies like my favorite, “Top Gun”, so, saying that I was amazed is an understatement.

Read more to know what to see at Patriots Point.

USS Yorktown

It is an aircraft carrier built during World War II, replacing the original USS Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway. It became a museum ship in 1975 and was designated a National Historic Landmark.

The view from the parking lot. I couldn’t help but say, “Wow!” as soon as I saw this view. But this is only the outside. There are more fascinating things and facts to see and learn inside the bowels of this massive piece of steel.

Medal of Honor Museum

This is what you will see as soon as you enter the USS Yorktown so, it was what we checked first.

This is where you see biographies of all medal recipients.

Those are the three versions of the Medal of Honor, one for each of the military departments of the Department of Defense.

Historic Aircraft

There are 28 naval aircraft on board the Yorktown carrier.

There are tidbits that you can read to learn more about each aircraft. This particular one, a B-25B Mitchell medium bomber, is the same type of plane used in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, our early symbolic payback for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

My boys and their big boy toys. 🙂

Project Mercury

Our first baby steps into the cosmos began with two suborbital flights fired with a Redstone Launch Vehicle rocket, culminating with John H. Glenn, Jr’s. historic ride into space history in the Friendship 7, sent soaring into orbit by an Atlas booster rocket for the first American to orbit the Earth in a Cold War battle in the Space Race war with Russia.

Apollo 8 Capsule

This interactive and immersive Apollo 8 Mission Exhibit will take you on a ride to the moon. One of the crew members of this flight was Jim Lovell who later commanded the infamous Apollo 13.

An audio system recreates the amazing sound and feel of a launch and reentry.

Inside Apollo 8 enjoying our “trip to the moon.”

Yorktown’s Deck

Here are more of the historic aircraft being displayed on the landing deck of USS Yorktown.

F-14 Tomcat. And there’s Tom Cruise checking out his ride. 🙂

As you can see it was a glorious day.

USS Laffey

It is a destroyer and earned the nickname, “The Ship That Would Not Die” for her survival of an attack by 22 kamikazes during the battle of Okinawa.

USS Clamagore

It was built in 1945 for the United States Navy and is the only known surviving example of a Guppy type submarine.

Only my husband and my son went inside.

While they were inside, I enjoyed myself with the awesome views of the harbor.

The view from where I was standing outside the entrance of the submarine.

We really had a fascinating and fun experience at Patriots Point.

Have you been to Patriots Point? How was your experience?

More Posts from Our Charleston Trip:

• Life is Infinitely Delicious
• Things To Do in Charleston
• Breakfast at First Watch
• A Day at Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens
• Dinner with a View at Shem Creek