When time traveling, how can I make sure a future area will be barren & desolate, but still near a city?

I’d say check with the Time Patrol, except that if they find out you have chrononautical equipment and aren’t in their Service, they will go back and kill your parents before they meet.

Yes, yes, I know that would be useless, and would just create another timeline branch, while leaving you fine in this one — but hey, the TeePees are cosmic Nazis and just enjoy killing and scaring people.

Also, I’d stick with going to periods where anti-tech groups aren’t in charge, if I were you.

The Christian theocrats of mid-21st century America (the old “United States of America,” not the other one) may be too stupid to even wipe themselves properly, but if they catch you, you will NOT be happy spending the rest of your life (2 weeks) in Camp Robertson.

Go with the vidcam thing.

And, as you probably already know, WHATEVER you do. avoid November 12, 2077, especially in the Birmingham, Alabama and Vladivostok, Siberia areas.

It won’t be pretty.

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‘Nuff said.

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I’ve had this problem as well, I solved it by choosing an expensive (read 5 star) hotel or mall, one that is quite recently constructed or one that belongs to a major line of hotels/malls, these would have been constructed at great expense and would not be demolished for quite a few years.. and you are reasonably likely to end up in the same hotel when travelling ahead in time.

Another way is to send some object (you could send a digi cam or camcorder to record the location)ahead in time with a note on it to whoever finds it with instructions to send it back in time.. if it doesnt return, well choose another place, this would be more expensive alternative if the guy in the future decides to sell it off as an collectors item/antique on fbay.com (future of ebay ?)

3rd option – Buy some land/ house/ property, pay taxes and stuff on it for 20 years, this is expensive but you can be sure that it will be there years later, as to whether there is civilisation around it years later will be the big question..

I would buy a plot of land and set up a trust fund to take care of its privacy. Then build a bunker on the land where you would travel too.

The problem I always have in time travel is how to compensate for the movement of the earth. Really, when you travel through time you have to also jump through space and calculate the exact location of that spot on earth for the machine to land there, otherwise, you would land out in space somewhere.

hmmmm….. you might want to think it out a bit more.

By donating land, now, to the National Wildlife Federation you can be assured it wil be kept safe for animals and time-travellers for generations. It wont be used for Development.

http://www.nwf.org/

I have a problem with time-travelling in that I find it very difficult to match the position of the Earth as it spirals around the Sun and around our Star Group, around the Galaxy. Some of the math makes any error of one hundredth of a second equal 1 miles off the surface or embedded in the crust of the planet. So for now, I will only do time-travel in deep space away from other objects.

That bank thing has been done before. But try passing a twenty dollar bill that was printed in 2102 and has Pres. O’bama’s face on it.

Please forgive me for my lack of knowledge on this topic. I have been totally engulfed in the ideas of Time, and Time travel and Memory, and supernatural and so on. So when i read some of these posts, and saw how you all talk about time traveling yourselves, which to me is amazing, confusing, and just plain wow. So I hope u dont mind me asking, first are you 1% serious that you actual travel through time, literally. (I’m not challenging your validity, i’m just asking respectfully for your honesty) If so, how have you achieved something so astounding…I read mentions of time machines, and i am desperate to know as much as possible. I’ll tell ya, discussions like this have opened a door of true childlike curiosity and just flat out passion to learn more. I have to imagine this has changed all your lives huh?

Oh the issues of time travel. This has happened to many of us, I once found myself inside a safe of a bank, who knew that my garage would be replaced in fifty years and a bank built on it’s site. I installed a safeguard on my machine that detects a problem and will make a slight adjustment in the program to insure that does not happen again.

You could try time traveling to the pioneer days, when big cities were just mining towns and such, just watch out for hostile Indians,Pale face, some of them could be relatives of mine from generations back. It is possible that they might scalp you and then remove your insides. On the other hand, they might adopt you and give you a pair of buck skin pants and moccasins. If you do something really heroic for them, you could be given the Chiefs most beautiful daughter for marriage.

I would send something ahead of you. A video camera or something. If it can be rigged to auto-return, you can “scout ahead” this way.

Alternatively, probably the best thing to do is build some sort of shelter, on your own property, and ensure it does not get disturbed for the next 20 years. You can use that as a drop point.

buy a piece of property and set it up as a land trust or something. that way, no buildings will ever be built there and fence it in to keep out the wife and other livestock!! 😉

To get to the nearest town, about… 45 minutes. As for the city, I already live in one.