( Mental Floss ) -- We 're in the throes of summer vacation season , but at least one American is still on the job . While it 's rumored that President Obama will follow in the footsteps of President Clinton and vacation on Martha 's Vineyard , he has n't had a chance to break out his Bermuda shorts just yet . When Obama does take off , though , he 'll join in the grand tradition of presidential vacations , like these notable ones : . President Bush ( R ) and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen ride bikes in Crawford , Texas , in 2008 . 1 . Abe Lincoln does n't go too far . Far-flung vacations are nice , but President Lincoln preferred to stay a bit closer to home . When Lincoln needed a getaway from the heat and political turmoil of Civil War-era Washington , D.C. , he headed to ... a different part of Washington , D.C. From 1862 to 1864 Lincoln spent June through November living in a cottage atop a hill at the Soldiers ' Home a few miles from the White House . Lincoln apparently loved the slight change of scenery , which meant slightly cooler temperatures and a chance to ride his horse each morning . If you 're considering a stay-cation this year , consider this Honest Abe 's endorsement . 2 . Movie cowboy does real ranching . Think George W. Bush was the first president to sneak away from the White House to spend time on his ranch ? Not quite . At the end of his second term as Governor of California in 1974 , Ronald Reagan paid just over half a million dollars to acquire Rancho del Cielo in California 's Santa Ynez Mountains . The 688-acre ranch , complete with stables and a 1500-square-foot adobe house , was Reagan 's go-to vacation destination while he was in office , and he entertained some big names there , including Margaret Thatcher , Queen Elizabeth II , and Mikhail Gorbachev , who gamely wore a cowboy hat during his visit . 3 . LBJ does some ranching , too . Texan Lyndon Johnson was very involved in the everyday operations of his ranch . Johnson , who had gotten into ranching in 1951 , grew his LBJ Ranch into a 2,700-acre spread populated by 400 head of Hereford cattle . Johnson was no absentee owner when he was in Washington , either . Johnson frequently headed back on vacations and supposedly drove his foreman crazy by calling every day to talk about the weather on the ranch or how the pastures looked . Today , the National Park Service maintains LBJ 's spread as a working ranch , complete with a herd of cattle descended from the Herefords Johnson bred . 4 . George W. Bush initiates a war on brush . George W. Bush followed in LBJ 's footsteps and went to his own Texas ranch when he needed a getaway . Prairie Chapel Ranch , a 1,583-acre spread Bush owns near Crawford , Texas , served as the secondary White House throughout Bush 's presidency , and he was often shown clearing brush during vacations . Bush was n't just doing farm work , though . He exhorted visitors to join the `` President 's 100-Degrees Club '' by running three miles or biking 10 after the mercury hit 100 degrees . Anyone who could pull of the feat got a specialized Under Armour shirt as recognition . We can only hope one of the many foreign dignitaries Bush entertained at the ranch -- including Vladimir Putin , Tony Blair , Silvio Berlusconi , Ariel Sharon , and Saudi King Abdullah -- managed to get one of the coveted shirts into their suitcases . Mental Floss : Iraq , Afghanistan and other extreme vacation spots . 5 . FDR heats up Georgia . Some presidents choose to head to their hometowns or a beach side resort for their vacations , but Franklin Roosevelt preferred to travel to western Georgia . Warm Springs , Georgia , is the home of ( you guessed it ! ) warm springs that supposedly had therapeutic value for polio sufferers . FDR , who had contracted his own paralytic illness in 1921 , started visiting Warm Springs in 1924 in the hope that exercising in the springs ' warm waters would cure him . Although the springs did n't reverse his illness , FDR felt like his time at the resort alleviated his symptoms somewhat . In 1927 he bought the resort he 'd been staying at , and in 1932 he ordered a six-room Georgia pine house to be built on the property . This house was FDR 's retreat throughout his presidency and became known as the Little White House . FDR was sitting for a portrait at the Little White House when he died of a stroke in April 1945 . Today , the house is part of Georgia 's state park system and is open to visitors ; it 's been preserved to look almost exactly as it did the day FDR died . 6 . Nixon gets the right ice cubes . When Richard Nixon wanted a break from Washington , he headed to a modest ranch home he owned on Key Biscayne off Miami . Nixon 's `` Florida White House , '' which he visited 50-plus times during his tenure in office , eventually swelled to include three houses and a floating helipad , which the Department of Defense installed at a taxpayer expense of $ 400,000 . ( There was plenty of room for taxpayer outrage at the $ 625,000 total the government spent sprucing up the Florida White House ; one itemized expense was $ 621 for a replacement icemaker because `` the President does not like ice with holes in it . '' ) Given that this house was Nixon 's retreat , it 's no surprise that some shady dealings transpired on the premises . Nixon allegedly discussed plans for the Watergate break-in at the house , and he holed up there when the coverup came to light . The house fell into disrepair after Nixon sold it , and in 2004 it was razed to make room for a new building . The Florida White House was n't Nixon 's only retreat , though . He bought a mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean in San Clemente , California , shortly after taking office in 1969 . Nixon dubbed his new digs `` La Casa Pacifica , '' but the press quickly started referring to the spread as `` the Western White House . '' This house was n't cheap for taxpayers , either ; the government dropped over a million dollars improving this home with temporary office quarters for staffers , helipads , and an upgraded heating system . Mental Floss : Donald Nixon and other memorable presidential siblings . 7 . Teddy Roosevelt goes bear hunting . Lounging on the beach is great , but do you really think Teddy Roosevelt would miss the opportunity to do something manly ? Roosevelt 's vacation in 1905 took him to the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs , Colorado , where he stayed for three weeks while bear hunting . 8 . FDR 's successor gets his own little White House . Harry Truman may have been from Missouri , but he headed south when he needed some R & R . Truman started suffering from exhaustion in late 1946 , and his physicians recommended a warm weather vacation to revitalize the President . Truman took his vacation in a converted duplex in Key West that already held some history . The house , which was originally built in 1890 for the commandant and paymaster of Key West 's naval base , had already hosted William Howard Taft while he was in office in 1912 . When Thomas Edison developed 41 new weapons to aid in the American efforts in World War I , he spent six months living in the house . Once Truman visited the house , though , it quickly became known as Truman 's Little White House . He ended up spending 175 days in Key West over the course of his two terms in office . Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy later used the house while they were in office , and it 's now open as a tourist attraction . Mental Floss : Early summer jobs of Truman , LBJ and more . 9 . Kennedy retreats to his compound . Starting in 1926 , Joseph P. Kennedy began taking his family to Hyannisport , Massachusetts , on vacation each summer . His son John liked the area so much that in 1956 he bought a cottage of his own near his parents ' digs , and the family soon purchased a third cottage in the area , giving rise to the name `` the Kennedy Compound . '' JFK used his cottage as a base of operations for his presidential campaign and later vacationed there each summer he was in office . 10 . George H.W . Bush prefers not to ranch . Not to be outdone by the Kennedys , the Bush family has an even older compound of their own in Kennebunkport , Maine . In 1903 George H. Walker , the grandfather of George H.W . Bush , built a great mansion on his oceanfront estate in Kennebunkport , and the property has remained in the family ever since . George H.W . Bush used the Kennebunkport compound as his vacation home during his presidency , and George W. Bush made a few getaways to the house as well . Between father and son , they 've entertained some pretty big names at their summer house , including Yitzhak Rabin , Vladimir Putin , and Nicolas Sarkozy . For more mental_floss articles , visit mentalfloss.com . Entire contents of this article copyright , Mental Floss LLC . All rights reserved .
U.S. presidents leave the White House to relax on vacations . Presidents Lyndon Johnson , Ronald Reagan , George W. Bush visited their ranches . Comment: Pres . Lincoln spent four months at the slightly cooler Soldiers ' Home .