Many families have to deal with working parents or new money saving habits this summer. Without cars, most teens are stranded at home with not much to do, except head to the neighborhood pool every once in a while or lounge on the couch. Vacations may not be on the top of the list of priorities as parents take on more hours or new jobs.

However, a “vacation” may be closer than some may think. These smaller, close-to-home trips are what I like to call “stay-cations.” Stay-cations allow for families to be with each other while traveling and not spending the massive amounts of money some real vacations call for.

Hannibal, Missouri is the perfect example of this. The hometown of author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) serves as the ideal destination for a family to spend their day.

Dining in Hannibal is easy. The Brick Oven is a secluded restaurant that only the locals know how seeing that the restaurant itself is thrown between two other similar buildings. The Brick Oven serves authentic Italian dishes and pizzas baked to perfection. They are known for their fresh bread and fire baked pizzas.

Moving on to dessert, Becky’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor and Emporium is where it’s at. Named after Mark Twain’s character, Becky Thatcher, Becky’s offers delicious ice cream in a fresh waffle cone. Along with the ice cream, the store itself idolizes the perfect general store we all see on television. Knick-knacks in jars and books all along the walls gives Becky’s that old fashioned feeling as the name promises.

While in Hannibal, it is almost impossible not to hear or see something that pertains to Mark Twain. Hannibal IS Mark Twain’s hometown.

Spending the day there is pretty organized. Just walking the streets of Hannibal you can venture into antique shops and clothing stores. I suggest taking a steamboat ride.

The Mark Twain Riverboat offers one hour long steamboat rides up and down the Mississippi as you straddle the Illinois-Missouri state lines. Sites to be seen: Mark Twain’s Jackson Island from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, plenty of trees and lots of water-related terms I am not familiar with. Don’t take my word for it, experience it for yourself. Overall, the trip was relaxing and interesting with our captain telling us stories of the river and town.

Before becoming an author, Samuel Clemens was a steamboat apprentice who shadowed the captain. During the Civil War years, steamboats were targets for the armies as they shot at the traveling boats. Samuel Clemens decided then that he would rather have a more enjoyable life alive writing stories and books. Pseudonyms were very popular for authors in that time, and Mark Twain was Samuel’s new identity. This was determined from his past days on the steam boat when the leads man would drop a pole into the water to find out how deep and safe the water was. If the water was 12 feet deep or more, the leads man would yell, “Mark Twain!” up to the captain to alert them of their depth.

Hannibal is a quaint town full of history for people to explore. The town’s atmosphere is rich with fiction as the stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn swirl through the air. Hannibal is a place for the perfect stay-cation in good ol’ Missouri.