We asked for your greatest tips for budding time travellers and you didn’t disappoint!
Before You Go
Research and wear appropriate clothing for the right time period. Multi-coloured prosthetic horns and plus-fours are popular now but I know for certain that they can panic the Aztecs.
Juanita Boscovar, Mexican Imperial City
Don’t take your address book on your trip. Everyone you know will be dead or won’t have existed yet and you will sink into a fugue should you become stranded and reminded constantly of this fact.
Charlie Whimple, Cardiff
Dig out a photograph of your mother or father when they were young and burn the image into your mind. Do not sleep with them. Don’t even kiss them.
Ferdinand Rapscallion, Tunbridge Wells
Check the labels on your clothing! Polyester is highly combustible during temporal insertion ionisation and screaming, burning, naked people do not make great first impressions.
Juanita Boscovar, Mexican Imperial City
There’s no need to worry about cancelling the milk before you leave as you can cancel it after you come back before you leave instead.
Jeb Hologram-Jones, Cloud City Gamma
Use an AI machine to extrapolate the elderly appearance of any future brothers and sisters. Do not molest them while they are in nursing homes.
Ferdinand Rapscallion, Tunbridge Wells
Always take out paradox insurance before you leave as you never can tell when the slightest change you make will rupture the temporal causality loop foolish human.
Insur-O-Bot 3F, International Insurance Space Station
Attend a finishing school and learn to walk and talk properly before travelling otherwise you may become immortalised as "that bumbling Hispanic twit from the future".
Juanita Boscovar, Mexican Imperial City
Health And Safety
Take your own powdered water when travelling to the past as all the water supplies on Earth were riddled with caterpillars until the insect plague in 2209.
Lord Terry, Nova Scotia
If bitten by a Tarkesian Moon Wasp during Earth Invasion 3 pour ginger beer on the wound. It is as effective as more expensive remedies and you can whip up a Moscow Mule at the same time.
Cheryl Wang, Moonbase Chekov
Group sex with monkeys is safe now but apparently it wasn’t always the case so ask before you inadvertently spread a worldwide disease.
Ferdinand Rapscallion, Tunbridge Wells
People who look identical to you but with goatee beards are not necessarily evil twins and may be simply drunk versions of yourself from the future playing pranks so take a moment before stabbing them in the face.
One-eyed Walter, Ward 6
Always take out invisible microbial necrosis insurance before you leave as ancient records may have omitted their presence in history foolish human.
Insur-O-Bot 3F, International Insurance Space Station
Your sub-dermal elephant repellant field may cook unshielded humans so use it sparingly on Earth before 3200.
Barry Sponge, Edinburgh
Local Knowledge
You can ride a stegosaurus!
James Peterson, Colorado
Stop visiting the grassy knoll in Dallas in 1963. The last time I was there it was packed with time travellers and you couldn’t see a thing.
Patrick Ulan-Bator, Chad
Human heads are non-detachable prior to the year 3000 and attempting to remove one can get you in serious trouble with the authorities.
Grand Moff Tarkwell, Singapore
They may look like Burrowing Wormbeasts of Epsilon Eridani VI but if you’re visiting the 1980s then chances are what you’re seeing are known locally as "leg warmers" and they’re very nearly harmless by comparison so don’t cause a scene.
Quincy Fortnum, Everestland
You can ride a triceratops!
James Peterson, Colorado
The floating, glowing, green blobs in the sky over Rome in the 19th century are not real taxis and are actually transdimensional scam artists out to steal your money. Don’t be fooled! Real taxis were more likely to be powered by horses during that particular time period.
Gustav Faust, Belgrade
Jack The Ripper is not nearly as tall or interesting as he appears in the brochure. Far better to travel the other side of the River Thames during the same period and look around for the less well-known but far more enjoyable Gertrude The Giant Streaker.
Toby Mugwump, Adelaide
Stop visiting Ford’s Theater in 1865. The last time I was there it was so full of time travellers that John Wilkes Booth couldn’t get to the box and Lincoln went on to survive, invented the neutron grenade, and wiped out Scandinavia as part of a deal to appease Confederates.
Patrick Ulan-Bator, Chad
Always take out pan-temporal drowning insurance before you leave as ancient civilisations are prone to flooding foolish human.
Insur-O-Bot 3F, International Insurance Space Station
You cannot ride a velociraptor!
James Peterson Junior, Colorado
September 11, 2006
hey man, i was the originator of the idea of "powdered water", patent pending. that came about around the same time that i thought up my "sugar coated sugar" breakfast cereal that is a nutritious blend of 7 whole grains and cubes of sugar, coated by sugar, and covered in a syrupy glaze. Yum! i just hope that i was the one who got credit for it.
ps. does jesus die again in the future? and does he have to partake in the additional step of turning powdered water, into liquid water, and then into wine? or is there powdered wine as well, adding yet another step to the process? YOU LEAVE SO MUCH TO THE IMAGINATION, WHY ARE YOU WEARING SO MUCH CLOTHES? err, i think i am going off subject here.
and i somehow believe that i am owed royalties for you writing an article about time travel, a mere few weeks after i speak about flux capacitors. my lawyer shall be contacting you shortly.
September 12, 2006
Cheeba – fix your damn comments system! I wanted to commiserate you on your current emotional misfortune. Commiserate still means laugh at with, right?
And Jesus? Oh no. Bad news for Jews and Christians toos! Like the rhyming? Well I don’t care. No sign of the Messiah on either his first or second coming (stop it) throughout time. Of course, in a time travelling capable future (of the future) religion is inevitably dead. Look! Dinosaurs! No Adam! It lies! It lies!
September 12, 2006
I want to travel to a future where all women are beautiful and nude, beer, wine, and whiskey, have replaced tap water, and I look damn good no matter what.
What year is that?
September 12, 2006
Sounds like 4165, at the peak of the New Cuban Empire.
Yep, that’s 4165 alright.
Oh.
April 18, 2013
Your time travel tips are very clever. May I reference them on my FaceBook Travel Page?
April 18, 2013
Of course, Jackie.
April 18, 2013
Thanks Mark!