Instructions

1. DELETE THE PRESENT. When traveling back in time, it’s very important to eliminate any evidence of the present. The place you choose must be historically pristine. No modern technology. No current fashions or hairstyles. Nothing out of place chronologically. The more a place looks like it did when it was, the better you’ll be able to time travel to it.
2. VISIT ETERNAL PLACES. You can easily travel back millions of years if you do it in geological time. Visit such epic sites as the Grand Canyon, where you can actually see the eons layer by layer. Count the rings on the trees in the great redwood stands of the Pacific northwest. Venture into a cool cave in Luray Caverns in Virginia or Kartchner Caverns in Arizona. Visit a retreating glacier or see the effects of one when you visit the Great Lakes.
3. “THE PAST IS A PLACE” — GO THERE. Some places where people lived centuries ago remain virtually unchanged. So strong is the historical pull of these places that you can be instantly transported back in time just by being there.

   One of these places I really love is Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill in Kentucky. This former Shaker community is preserved the way it was in the early nineteenth century without any hokey tourist touches. One of the best things about this place is that every night they close the gates to the outside world. No one is left inside except those who’ve arranged ahead of time to stay. You sleep in one of the Shaker dormitories (men and women were celibate and slept separately), eat in the communal dining hall and roam the green commons to your heart’s content. If you manage to avoid other visitors — and that’s easy to do, since only a few stay over — you can easily travel back in time and visualize the community the way it was more than 100 years ago.

   If you want to travel back to the days when buffalo roamed free in the Wild West, you can’t do better than to visit Custer State Park in South Dakota. You’ll see bison herds on the open range. With no references to the present to distract you, it’s easy to travel back to the time before the railroad came and the bison were virtually exterminated.

   One of the most evocative places I’ve ever time traveled to is Bodie, California. Situated just east of the Sierra Nevadas, Bodie was a booming mining town in the late 1800’s. Now it’s a ghost town that’s been left in a state of “arrested decay.” One of the things that makes Bodie such a special place is the fact that so much is still there. Dishes remain on kitchen tables, coffins are on display at the mortuary, and mail still waits to be picked up in post office boxes. The town appears to have been frozen in time, just waiting for its residents to return. Bodie is in a very remote area — don’t even think about visiting it in the winter — but it’s a must-see for the serious time traveler.

   See “Resources” below for more ideas.

4. STAY IN HISTORIC HOMES. I get chills just thinking about the Stephen Daniels House in Salem, Massachusetts. Built in 1667, the Daniels house is actually older than The House of the Seven Gables, which is in the same town. The big difference is that you can stay overnight in the Stephen Daniels House, which we did. The age of the house, its authenticity in every detail, and the fact that it’s in the town famous for the witch trials of 1692, made it an especially evocative trip to the past.