One Day In Hannibal, MO: A Family Travel Review

We wanted to spend a single day in Hannibal to break up our road-trip along the Avenue of the Saints (Minneapolis-St.Paul to St. Louis). Our goal was to spend the day enjoyably, seeing and experiencing Hannibal sights, and stretching our legs so that we could continue on our Avenue of the Saints journey.

Our approach was to determine two anchor activities that are, by nature, schedule oriented, such as the tour of Mark Twain's Cave and the Mark Twain Riverboat. We would then fill the time between those tour events with more flexible activities, such as Sawyer's Creek and Cardiff Hill & the Mark Twain Lighthouse.

Mark Twain Cave was Missouri's first show cave. It's the cave that Mark Twain explored and drew upon when writing Tom Sawyer. Aside from Twain's fictional use of the cave, the cave has an interesting history - including preserved autographs on the wall by outlaw Jesse James - as his gang occasionally hid out in the cave. The website for Mark Twain Cave indicated the tours last 55 minutes, and they open at 9 a.m. http://www.marktwaincave.com/

The Mark Twain Riverboat will take you on excursions from Hannibal up and down the Mississippi River. The Mark Twain Riverboat website indicates they have one hour sight-seeing tours, and two-hour dinner, and two-hour jazz cruises. http://www.marktwainriverboat.com/

Sawyer's Creek and a destination that offers amusements, a gift shop, a wine shop, and a Riverview Cafe. The Sawyer's Creek website is updated in May of 2007 and has the latest information about their ameneties overlooking the Mississippi River. http://www.sawyerscreek.com/

Cardiff Hill & The Mark Twain Lighthouse are officially a Hannibal City park feature. You can't go into the lighthouse, but you can start by visiting the sculpture of Tom & Huck at the foot of Cardiff Hill and either take the 200+ stairs up to the lighthouse, or you can drive up to just below the lighthouse and take fewer stairs. There's also a way to drive to the top and walk a paved trail to the lighthouse. It is a scenic view of the Mississippi River.

Our experience unfolded with us checking out of the Hotel Clemens around 8:30 a.m. and making the 1 mile drive down to Mark Twain Cave to buy tickets for the 9 a.m. tour.

The good folks at Mark Twain Cave saw the panic on my face when I discovered we were going tour the cave the thirty rambunctious fifth graders on a field-trip. Fortunately, they've been in the tour business long enough that they have a policy of letting individual ticket holders take the tour at the front near the tour guide so that the field-trip doesn't overwhelm individual guests with noise and activity. It worked very well, and the field-trip kids were well behaved. About an hour later, around 10 a.m., we left Mark Twain cave and went directly across Hwy 79 to Sawyer's Creek.

At Sawyer's Creek we decided to start with the amusements. Instead of paying for each amusement individually, we purchased wristbands that allowed us to enjoy as many of the included amusements we wanted in a two-hour period. We played miniature golf, rode bumper boats, and launched water balloons at each other. After the amusements, we took some time to feed the huge carp in the attractively fenced pond (25 center per handful) before heading to the Riverview Cafe for lunch. The special at the cafe that days was a chicken pasta with spinach, which my wife enjoyed. I chose the tenderloin and fries because I'd heard it was a generous sized-tenderloin - and it was. Our son had chicken fingers and applesauce. We soon needed to leave Sawyer's Creek before heading into Hannibal to make the 1 p.m. departure of the Mark Twain Riverboat. I regret we didn't take the time to sample the wines in the wine shop. They have Hannibal's largest selection of Missouri wines in a very nice wine shop. However, we did pause long enough in the Candy Shop to purchase a massive homemade peanut-butter cup. It was enough for three of us - considering we'd just finished a meal on the Riverview Cafe balcony. We left Sawyer's Creek around 12:30. The staff at Sawyer's Creek made us feel welcome there, and we look forward to returning sometime.

We drove the mile north into Hannibal on Hwy 79 from Sawyer's Creek, and drove directly to the waterfront just in time to wait for a train to block our access to the Mark Twain Riverboat. We call the Riverboat ticket office to let them know we were going to be delayed. (Actually, we didn't have the Riverboat ticket office phone number, so we called Mark Twain Cave and asked if they'd give us the number. Those Hannibal folks are nice and want each other to succeed.) The ticket office said the train was a frequent occurrence and they'd wait for us, especially since they were waiting for a school bus of field-trippers. The train eventually rolled completely by, we bought our tickets and we took the hour long, somewhat scenic, riverboat tour. The riverboat staff were pleasant, but weren't as welcoming as the folks at Mark Twain Cave or Sawyer's Creek. The tour guide who narrated the trip was amusing and pleasnt, plus he was one who we bumped into before the departure and was as friendly as others we'd experienced in Hannibal.

After the Mark Twain Riverboat returned to Hannibal we piled into our car and headed for the foot of Cardiff Hill to look at the sculpture of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. There are only seven sculptures of literary characters in the world. The statue of Tom & Huck at the base of Cardiff Hill is one of them. Since we'd actually been to the top of Cardiff Hill to walk around lighthouse the previous night, we headed out of town. However, we could have easily driven a street half-way up the hill, parked the car, and scaled the remaining stairs up to the lighthouse.

In all, the people of Hannibal at Mark Twain Cave and Sawyer's Creek were very welcoming. The folks on the Mark Twain Riverboat did well too. We enjoyed our day in Hannibal, and particularly liked Sawyer's Creek because it's a distinct combination of activities, dining, and shopping that we haven't seen elsewhere in larger metro areas. Once again, Sawyer's Creek staff, was exceptional. Next time, we'll definitely visit Sawyer's Creek, and possibly explore some of the other sights in Hannibal we didn't visit this time.

Hopefully, this family travel review can help your plan an enjoyable visit to Hannibal, Missouri.

5 Mommy-Stars out of 5