Friday, March 23, 2012

What to pack for Time Travel?

I was writing a story and I came to this question: What would a girl want to pack when she was just told that she is about to leave on a journey through time? 

I thought perhaps someone had mused about this question before, so I Googled it. I did not find a single serious effort to answer the question. The closest I came was a website for a gag t-shirt which would supposedly help the wearer become rich if inadvertently traveling back in time, because every white space on the shirt was filled with lists of money making inventions. The rest of the results were just information of what to pack for first time travelers.
In my story there is also limited space for bags and the character must pack only one bag. Basically my character is going to be "backpacking" through time and space. 

I decided to start from the ground up, with the shoes. I gave her a pair of lightweight, combination walking/hiking boots, a pair of pretty sandals and a pair of flip flops. Once she had shoes for every occasion, I tried to be sparing but plan for all circumstances. After all traveling through time, she could find herself in any number of climates or situations. There wasn't much room in her back pack though, with all those shoes.

The final item I had her pack is a swimsuit. I don't know how many times I have gone traveling and forgotten to bring one only to regret it. I have found that no matter whether it is forgotten or intentionally left behind, if you don't have a swim suit, someone will present you with the opportunity to go swimming. Finally I added a travel journal to her bag. I think even someone who never kept a journal in their life would feel some keen desire to bring one on a trip like this.

I am sure there are countless things which I have left out. I thought a camera would have been a good addition but how to keep it charged would be the trick. It's not like ever place in time and space has a convenience store that sells batteries. And if you had rechargeables then the question would be a) does this time and place have electric outlets and b) Do they have the standard 110 volts or do you need an adapter?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Have a thought? Please share it. I want to hear from you.

My most Popular Blog Posts

Bellingham FanSci