Presidential Libraries Road Trip: Routes to All 13

The United States has 13 federally run presidential libraries, one for every president from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush, and they are scattered across the map in a way that makes no sense until you remember that each man put his where he came from. That is the appeal. A presidential libraries road trip sends you to West Branch, Iowa, to Abilene, Kansas, and to a hilltop above Simi Valley, places you would never otherwise build a vacation around. The museums are far better than the word "library" suggests: full-scale Oval Offices, an Air Force One you can walk through, slabs of the Berlin Wall, and, at eight of the thirteen, the president's grave. Nobody sensible drives all of them in one go, so we've split them into four regional routes that each fit a long weekend or a week, then added the outliers and the two big presidential centers that opened in the summer of 2026.

Before you go. Buy the Passport to Presidential Libraries at the first admissions desk you reach. It costs $10, each of the 13 libraries has its own stamp, and a completed book earns a commemorative token while supplies last. Stamps can't be added by mail afterward, so don't leave it in the car. You can also tick each one off on our presidential libraries map, which adds the privately run libraries for earlier presidents. Most museums open daily at 9 or 10 and close at 5, with exceptions that wreck itineraries: Eisenhower is closed Mondays, Carter is closed Sundays, and Truman, Ford, Clinton, and both Bush museums don't open until noon or 1 on Sundays. Adult admission is $12 to $16 at most of them (Hoover, Truman, Clinton, Carter, and the elder Bush are all $12), while Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush run $26 to $30. Reagan's price swings with its special exhibits, from $16 in a quiet stretch to $29.95 when a blockbuster is on. All 13 close on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day, and several, including LBJ, Eisenhower, Clinton, and George W. Bush, are free on Veterans Day. Allow two to three hours per museum and four at Reagan.

Route 1: The heartland loop (4 days). Do this one first: three libraries and Lincoln line up along 700 miles of interstate. Start in Springfield, Illinois, at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. It is run by the state, not the National Archives, so there is no passport stamp, but it is the most theatrical of the lot and open daily 9 to 5. Lunch is at Cozy Dog Drive In, the Route 66 stand that has been selling corn dogs on a stick since the 1940s. Three and a half hours northwest, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa, reopened in August 2026 after a $20 million renovation that closed it for a year and a half, which makes the oldest presidency in the system its newest museum. It sits inside the free Herbert Hoover National Historic Site: the two-room cottage where he was born in 1874, a blacksmith shop like his father's, the Quaker meetinghouse, and the hillside graves of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover. Sleep in Iowa City, 15 minutes west, and have breakfast at Hamburg Inn No. 2, the diner where Reagan, Clinton, and Obama have all eaten and where customers vote for presidential candidates by dropping coffee beans in jars.

From Iowa City it is about five hours to Independence, Missouri. The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum was completely redone in 2021 and is the best of the 13 at walking you through hard decisions: the atomic bomb, Korea, firing MacArthur. Truman kept a working office here for years and is buried in the courtyard beside Bess. Afterward, walk Independence Square to Clinton's Soda Fountain, in the old drugstore where a 14-year-old Truman had his first job mopping floors, and order a phosphate. The Truman Home on Delaware Street is shown by ranger tour Wednesday through Sunday; go to the visitor center at 223 North Main first for tickets, because groups are small. Abilene, Kansas, is two and a half hours west on I-70. The Eisenhower Presidential Library is a 22-acre campus built around the white frame house where Ike grew up, with the museum, the library, and the Place of Meditation, the small chapel where he, Mamie, and their first son are buried. The museum is $15, or $20 with the boyhood home tour, though home tours were paused for maintenance in fall 2026, so check before counting on one. The grounds and chapel are free and open daily; the museum is not open Mondays.

Route 2: Arkansas and the Texas triangle (5 days). Four libraries in 600 miles. Begin in Little Rock at the Clinton Presidential Center, a glass box cantilevered toward the Arkansas River like the "bridge to the 21st century" of his speeches. Full-size replicas of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room are inside, and the 1899 Rock Island railroad bridge next door is now a footbridge over the river. Dinner is at Doe's Eat Place on West Markham, the steak-and-tamales joint that Clinton's 1992 campaign staff used as a canteen and where Rolling Stone interviewed him in the back room. Spend the next morning at Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, then drive five hours down I-30 to Dallas. The George W. Bush Presidential Center on the SMU campus is the most polished of the Texas three. The twisted steel from the World Trade Center and the bullhorn from Ground Zero are what people remember, and the 15-acre Native Texas Park behind the building is free. While you're in Dallas, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is the unofficial extra stop for anyone following the presidents.

Three hours south, the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M is $12, and its newest wing is free: a pavilion opened in 2024 that holds a Marine One helicopter and Union Pacific locomotive 4141, painted in Air Force One colors, which pulled his funeral train. He, Barbara, and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot behind the library. Finish in Austin, two hours west, at the LBJ Presidential Library, a ten-story travertine monolith on the University of Texas campus whose main exhibit reopened in March 2026 after a multimillion-dollar overhaul. Admission is $16, half that on Tuesdays, and parking in Lot 38 is free; avoid home football Saturdays. With one more day, drive a little over an hour west to the LBJ Ranch near Stonewall. The Texas White House is still closed for restoration, but the free self-guided driving loop past his reconstructed birthplace, his first school, and the family cemetery where he is buried is open daily. Pick up the permit at the state park visitor center before 4.

Route 3: Southern California in a weekend. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley are 75 miles apart, which in Los Angeles traffic means one per day. Nixon's is the more candid, with a Watergate gallery that doesn't flinch, the small farmhouse his father built from a kit still standing where he was born, and Richard and Pat Nixon's graves in the garden a few steps from it. Reagan's is the blockbuster: the Air Force One that carried seven presidents is parked inside a glass-walled hangar above the valley, and you walk through the cabin. A Marine One, a section of the Berlin Wall, and the Reagans' hilltop memorial site are all included. Go on a weekday and buy tickets online.

Route 4: The Hudson Valley to Boston (3 days). The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, was the first of them all, opened in 1941, and the only one a sitting president actually worked in. It shares the estate with the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, where he and Eleanor are buried in the rose garden; the library and the house tour are separate $15 tickets. The stop most visitors skip is Val-Kill, two miles east, the plain cottage Eleanor Roosevelt called home. It is quieter than the big house and says more about her than any exhibit does. Boston is three and a half hours east. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, I.M. Pei's white concrete tower and glass pavilion on Columbia Point, is open daily; reserve a timed ticket for weekends, and end in the pavilion, where a single enormous flag hangs over the harbor view.

The outliers and the newcomers. Two federal libraries stand alone. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum sits in a wooded park two miles east of downtown Atlanta; it is $12, free for anyone 16 and under, and open Monday through Saturday. Afterward, head half a mile north to Manuel's Tavern, the bar where Carter launched his 1970 run for governor and where Georgia Democrats have watched election returns ever since. Carter's real monument is Plains, two and a half hours south, where the national historical park preserves his boyhood farm, his high school, and the depot that was his 1976 campaign headquarters. The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he and Betty are buried beside the river; his archive is 130 miles away in Ann Arbor, and the museum is the one you want. Pair it with Chicago, three hours around the lake, where the Obama Presidential Center opened in Jackson Park in June 2026. It is run by the Obama Foundation, not the National Archives, so again no stamp. Museum entry is by timed ticket only, $30 for adults, and nothing is sold at the door once a day sells out; the grounds, playground, and public library branch are free. Finally, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opened on July 4, 2026, on a butte above Medora, North Dakota, at the edge of the national park that carries his name. It is $26, takes about three and a half hours, and drops to Wednesday-through-Sunday hours from December through February. Our Medora guide covers the rest of town.

When to go and how to string it together. Spring and fall suit the heartland and Texas routes, when the Kansas wind is tolerable and Austin isn't 100 degrees. Summer works for Hyde Park, Boston, and Medora, and Southern California is a year-round trip. Plan around the closed days (Monday in Abilene, Sunday in Atlanta) and around football Saturdays in Austin and College Station, when traffic and hotel prices both spike. If you are chasing the full passport, the heartland loop and the Texas route knock out seven of the 13 stamps in under two weeks of driving, and the remaining six pair up neatly with trips you might take anyway: Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, and a Lake Michigan summer.