Best Bed and Breakfast
The Porch Swing Inn
Parkville may feel a little too close to qualify as a weekend getaway, but the Porch Swing Inn makes the Missouri River town seem a bit more luxurious. Yeah, B&Bs sometimes have a bad rap as cheesy, antique-laden boardinghouses where you have to sit through breakfast with Grandma's bridge club. Not here. Rhonda Weimer and Ellen Underkoff spent 16 months remodeling this charming three-story home just north of downtown Parkville, turning each of the four guest rooms into a cozy homage to a Show-Me icon. The Jesse James Hideaway has a wood-post bed and huge bay windows. The Molly Brown Stateroom — named for Missouri's Titanic survivor — has a steamer-trunk closet and a brass bed that looks straight out of 1912. Plus, Underkoff and Weimer — a psychotherapist and a geologist, respectively — aren't ready for the bridge club. They're funny and laid-back. They have two Weimaraners and a couple of cats. They're not going to freak out if you come back from the Power Plant Restaurant & Brewery completely wasted. (We know — we've done it.) Best of all, Weimer makes a killer breakfast that will make you forget your hangover — and the fact that you've barely left the KC city limits.