
The fastest way is to use the interactive seed-map finder on this page: enter your world seed and it plots the exact coordinates of every Ocean Monument so you can travel straight there. In-game you can also explore deep ocean biomes, where their large prismarine and sea lantern structures are visible underwater, or use the /locate structure minecraft:monument command in Java Edition.
Ocean Monuments only generate in deep ocean biomes (including deep cold, deep lukewarm, and deep frozen ocean) and need to be surrounded by ocean. In Java Edition they use a placement spread of 32 chunks with a 5-chunk separation, so at most one generates per 512x512 block area and they end up spaced roughly several hundred to a couple thousand blocks apart rather than being truly rare.
Each monument is guarded by many Guardians and 3 Elder Guardians that inflict Mining Fatigue, making it hard to break blocks. The main reward is 8 gold blocks hidden in a chamber behind the elder guardians, plus a chance of a sponge room containing wet sponges; there are no loot chests, but the prismarine, dark prismarine, and sea lanterns are valuable building blocks.