Mark Twain House Living History Tour

Visiting the Mark Twain House provides an opportunity to get to know the American author who was in his lifetime the most well-known person in the world. He spent 17 years in Hartford and they were the most productive in his life, at least when it comes to writing. He lived an exciting life and saw a great deal of the world before he settled down with his wife Livy at Nooks Farm.

If you want to take the Living History Tour, it is recommended that you book it ahead of time online. You will be able to see which of the character will be leading your tour. I am going to say, that is not guaranteed since we signed up for butler George Griffin and ended up with best friend Joe Twitchell. We are not complaining but we were a little surprised. 

Plan to arrive at least an hour before the time of your tour. A 23-minute film is offered which is well worth watching and a few galleries that you will also want to visit not to mention the gift shop. You need to be able to climb stairs to take this tour, lots and lots of stairs. The tour takes 75 minutes.

The tour begins right at the bottom of the stairs in the Visitor Center. Our group had about 10 people in it and that size was very good given the places we stopped to hear Joe spin his tales. And spin he did, this is so much more than the normal tour through the rooms, you get to hear about the real relationship between these two men.

The tour covers three floors of the house and then ends in the basement. In the basement, Joe gets out of character and answers current day questions. We then walked around the exterior of the house to appreciate its location.

We absolutely loved this tour, as a matter of fact, all of us said we would like to do it again with another character, you will see a whole other view of the great man from the eyes of some of the other people who shared his life. Worth every penny of the $25 adult ticket and I would say worth even more. I highly recommend a visit to the Mark Twain House.