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What do presidents do once they return to a quasi-normal life? As one can imagine, it can be pretty hard to decide what to do with yourself after holding the highest office in the land. However, throughout the years, many US presidents have gone on to have interesting and eventful second acts. And when it comes to more recent presidents, they didn't have to start entirely from scratch after leaving office. The Former Presidents Act, which was passed in 1958, allows them a pension, a private staff and office, medical insurance, and Secret Service protection for 10 years.
Curious to find out what some former Oval Office occupants spent their time doing after leaving office? Then click on for more!
The nation's first president stepped down as commander-in-chief in 1797, and that same year, he opened a whiskey distillery at his home in Mount Vernon.
Washington's distillery was small in size, but in 1799, the year of his death, it produced 11,000 gallons of booze.
After his four years as the second US president, John Adams retired to a quiet life with his wife Abigail.
Adams died on the same day as Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, on July 4, 1826, 50 years after the American Declaration of Independence.
James Madison was a plantation owner, and after he stepped down he returned to his land, where he owned slaves.
Madison was an active member of the American Colonization Society, a controversial organization that tried to return enslaved people to Africa.
One term as Commander in Chief wasn't enough time in Washington for John Quincy Adams. After losing his reelection bid in 1828, he went on to serve nine terms in Congress, as a Representative for Massachusetts.
Working until the very end, Adams had a stroke and collapsed right on the House floor in 1848. Two days later, at age 80, he died.
Grover Cleveland is the only man in history to serve a term as president, only to return to the job a few years later.
After his second presidential term, Cleveland got involved in the stock market in order to support his family, making a considerable amount of money.
Theodore Roosevelt tried to become president for a third time in 1912, but lost to Woodrow Wilson. Afterward, he took his son Kermit to explore the Brazilian Amazon.
Battling malaria and dealing with a leg injury in a hostile environment, the trip nearly killed him. Fortunately, Roosevelt made it home, although the adventure left him with a range of ailments.
Having served as president from 1909 to 1913, William Howard Taft was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court after this time in the Oval Office.
To date, he's the only person to have served as the head of both the judicial and executive branches of our government.
From 1930 to 1931, Calvin Coolidge published 'Thinking Things Over With Calvin Coolidge,' a column that was nationally syndicated for the McClure Newspaper chain.
The former president also published his autobiography in 1929, 'The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge.'
Dwight D. Eisenhower grew up on a farm in Abilene, Kansas, and when he left the presidency in 1961, he returned to his roots and moved to a farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. There, he raised beef cattle, as well as milking cows.
Eisenhower also had a passion for painting, and in the last 20 years of his life, he completed more than 260 paintings.
In 1982, the year after his term ended, Jimmy Carter created the Carter Center, a nonprofit that aims to advance democracy and human rights globally.
Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, with the committee lauding his "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."
The Watergate scandal forced Republican Richard Nixon to resign. His administration had been involved in a cover-up after a break-in at the Democratic National Congress revealed his opponents had been secretly recorded.
Nixon faced health problems and financial ruin during the fallout, but managed to recover financially thanks to the sale of his memoirs for over US$2 million.
Though he left the White House in 2001, after serving two terms, Clinton has been an active presence in the media.
In 2004, Clinton, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and actress Sophia Loren won the Best Spoken Word Album for Children Grammy for narrating the Russian folk tale 'Peter and the Wolf.' The following year, he won Best Spoken Word Album for the audiobook of his autobiography 'My Life.'
After leaving office in 2009, George W. Bush returned home to Texas, where he's spent time developing a new hobby; painting.
Bush has also published several books, including his presidential memoir 'Decision Points' (2010) and 'Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warriors' (2017).
Having left office in 2017, Barack Obama spent his year post-presidency vacationing in the Caribbean and spending time with his family.
In 2018, he and former first lady Michelle Obama started an Oscar-winning production company, Higher Ground Productions. Obama also released his presidential memoir, 'A Promised Land' (2020).
As Biden’s tenure as the 46th US president ended on January 20, 2025, one of the first things the former president did was sign up with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). The talent agency also represented Biden in the past, from 2017 to 2020.
It remains unclear what other plans Biden has in his sights. However, as he left his position in the White House in January, he said, "We're leaving office, we're not leaving the fight."
What do US presidents do after they leave office?
Life after the White House
LIFESTYLE Politicians
What do presidents do once they return to a quasi-normal life? As one can imagine, it can be pretty hard to decide what to do with yourself after holding the highest office in the land. However, throughout the years, many US presidents have gone on to have interesting and eventful second acts. And when it comes to more recent presidents, they didn't have to start entirely from scratch after leaving office. The Former Presidents Act, which was passed in 1958, allows them a pension, a private staff and office, medical insurance, and Secret Service protection for 10 years.
Curious to find out what some former Oval Office occupants spent their time doing after leaving office? Then click on for more!