The newly renovated Lincoln's Cottage (formerly known as Anderson Cottage) is seen in Washington on Jan. 15, 2008.

The stone abode, called Anderson Cottage after Maj. Gen. Robert Anderson, Fort Sumter's commanding officer at the outbreak of the Civil War, offered him a hilltop view of the capital, a breeze and an opportunity to read and write in serenity. Some authorities say he wrote some or all of the Emancipation Proclamation while in residence.

The cottage was recently restored and opened to visitors.

Lover of big-game hunts, Theodore Roosevelt is shown beside an elephant he brought down in Africa in 1909.

Roosevelt set the pattern for modern presidential vacations by mixing pleasure with lots of business. Starting in 1902, Sagamore Hill, his Oyster Bay home on the North Shore of Long Island, became the summer White House. While there, he organized the negotiations that ended the Russo-Japanese War, earning him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.

Calvin Coolidge rides a horse to the dedication ceremony of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, Aug. 15, 1927. Coolidge vacationed for three months in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1927, fishing and riding horses in Custer State Forest in the southeastern corner of the hills.

Retired AP writer Lawrence L. Knutson writes: "Wearing a Western hat, cowboy boots, fringed gloves and a business suit, Coolidge rode a strawberry roan named Mistletoe the three miles to Mount Rushmore from the town of Keystone" and dedicated the monument to presidents that would be carved in the granite.

Herbert Hoover fishes in New England, May 29, 1939.

Hoover established a presidential retreat in the Blue Ridge mountains along Virginia's Rapidan River three hours from the capital. There, he indulged his passion for fly fishing, angling for speckled trout in clear mountain streams.

Hoover declared fishing to be a "constant reminder of the democracy of life, of humility and human frailty — for all men are equal before fishes." His 164 acres eventually became part of Shenandoah National Park.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, wearing a hat and waving, sails into Penobscot Bay, Maine, June 24, 1933. He is surrounded by sons James, wearing a dark sweater; John, directly behind the president; and Franklin Jr., right. Forced to give up the presidential yacht at the outbreak of World War II, Roosevelt relaxed at a former boys summer camp tucked into the foliage of Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. Roosevelt called the retreat Shangri-La, after the paradise hideaway in "Lost Horizon." (President Eisenhower would later rename it Camp David after his father and grandson.)

In the lodge known as Bear's Den, he and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill planned for the Normandy invasion. He went to Shangri-La more than 20 times during his presidency.

President Harry Truman, spending his vacation at the naval base in Key West, Fla., on Nov. 30, 1949, wears one of his signature caps and sporty shirt as he carries a walking stick on a stroll about the station.

Truman loved wearing loudly colored, loose shirts during his 11 vacations at Key West, from 1946 to 1952. Americans sent him gift shirts in such great numbers that he had dozens laid out on the lawn for anyone on his staff who wanted one.

He stayed at the Commandant's House on the naval base, enjoying a private beach, screened porches and a tropical garden with the presidential yacht Williamsburg docked nearby for his use. Truman favored long poker sessions and afternoon naps during his escapes from "the big white jail" in Washington.

Dwight D. Eisenhower relaxes at the 18th hole during a golf game in Newport, R.I., Sept. 10, 1957.

Eisenhower was an avid golfer who made a beeline to the links at every opportunity. He played often at Burning Tree in Maryland, Augusta National in Georgia, Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, Newport in Rhode Island and Cherry Hills near Denver. By one account, he averaged three rounds a week.

It was during Ike's 1955 vacation, the night after an aborted game at Cherry Hills, that he suffered a heart attack. Months later, after a hospital stay and rest at his Gettysburg farm, he was allowed to return to the game, on one condition: "My doctor has given me orders that if I don't start laughing instead of cussing when I miss these shots, then he's going to stop me from playing golf."

John F. Kennedy takes the wheel of the Coast Guard yawl Manitou for a cruise along Down East Maine, Aug. 11, 1962, as Sen. Benjamin Smith, who took the senate seat vacated by Kennedy, stands at right.

Kennedy vacationed at Cape Cod, Palm Beach, Fla., Newport, R.I., and Virginia's horse country. Perhaps his favorite spot was at the tiller of a sailboat. A sailor since boyhood, Kennedy enjoyed outings on the Honey Fitz, the 92-foot presidential yacht that could carry 40 guests. He'd swim off the side of the boat in warm waters during winter visits to Palm Beach.

Kennedy celebrated his last birthday — his 46th — with cocktails and dinner aboard Sequoia, an all-wood, 104-foot motor yacht.

Former President George H. W. Bush, with a Secret Service agent behind him, pilots his speedboat Aug. 25, 2004, in the waters off Kennebunkport, Maine.

Bush spent much of his childhood at the family's Kennebunkport estate. The property has been a family retreat for more than a century.

President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton hold hands, facing daughter Chelsea, out for a family vacation stroll in field graced by trio of elk in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Aug. 12, 1996.

The Clintons' summer vacation spot of choice was Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. They went there on their first presidential vacation in 1993.

President Bush enjoys a bike ride during a vacation on his ranch on Aug. 24, 2007, in Crawford, Texas.

An avid fitness enthusiast, Bush would start the day fishing for perch on his pond at 6 a.m. Later, he would ride his mountain bike on trails he hand-built around his 1,600-acre ranch.

After lunch and with the afternoon heat rising above 100 degrees, Bush would gather senior staff and the most hardy of his Secret Service protective detail for a afternoon of cutting cedar out on the wilds of his ranch.

President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha and Malia tour Hopi Point at Grand Canyon National Park Aug. 16 in Arizona.

Obama is heading to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, an island playground for the rich frequented in years past by presidents Clinton and Ulysses S. Grant, for his first presidential vacation.