Copyright � 2026 by Shane
Tourtellotte
It's always embarrassing. You're traveling somewhere -- vacation, business trip, whatever -- and only when you're unpacking at your destination do you realize that you forgot to bring something along. It's bad enough when you neglected to pack your razor or extra socks: you can almost always buy replacements at your destination with only moderate discomfiture.
When you're two thousand years from home, that's when it gets really awkward.
No matter how long or short your time-traveling journey, you need to prepare. This should be a point not only of practicality but of pride. You've mastered the forces of time and space: running out of cash halfway through your trip just reeks of ironic incompetence.
It may help you to equate time travel to a backpacking trip. You're going somewhere without all your accustomed conveniences ready to hand, where you need to rely on the resources you carry for your safety and sustenance. This means plenty of triage, figuring out what's essential and what's superfluous, and how much weight and volume you can carry without overburdening yourself.
Different epochs and places will naturally have different requirements. I won't cover them all here, or even the three illustrative eras: ironically, I have neither the time nor the space. I can lay out the fundamentals, what you should always take, or at least have a good reason to leave behind.
Before beginning that list, allow me a moment to sound just like your parents. Make sure you go to the bathroom before starting your trip. The longer you have before needing to figure out excretory basics where you're going, the better. On the same principle, always eat and drink before setting off. This will help stretch your resources, even if it does hasten your reckoning with the bathroom dilemma.
That said, here is my non-exhaustive list of what to take on your time journey:
1. Period-appropriate clothing
Your appearance is your first layer of camouflage. Looking out of place will raise suspicion, make necessary social interactions irksome, and even draw the notice of official powers that you'd rather not deal with. Take pains to make the right first impression.
Make sure your clothes reflect the social status you're assuming. Throughout much of history, there is strong correlation between how you dress and how rich or otherwise elite you are. Also take the climate and season you're visiting into account. For instance, Elizabethan England was in the midst of the Little Ice Age, and an extra layer may not go amiss.
One set of clothes will likely do for a short visit. For a longer stay, consider purchasing any additional sets in your target time period. This will save you space and weight in what you take on your visit, and will also let you exchange your approximation of period dress for something more exact.
2. Good sturdy walking shoes
I make this a separate entry from clothing to emphasize how practical you should be here. Most of the past has limited means of transportation, and walking will likely be your first choice for getting around. (I will discuss your probable second choice in the next chapter.) Wear something that will endure stiff use on the poor roads you're likely to tread.
3. Money, precious metals, and trade goods
This will have its own chapter. Even if you intend a trip lasting only hours and involving no expenses, it's wise to have a reserve in case of trouble, or just if you spot something you absolutely have to buy.
4. Food and water, in period-appropriate containers
Water is the more important, especially in places and times where safe sources of water are rare. Water drawn from polluted rivers and lakes is distressingly common throughout history. Even Roman aqueduct water, drawn from fresh springs across Italy, had to go through lead piping, which is unpleasant if not quite as acute a health problem as, say, cholera. Food of uncertain provenance will carry its own risks.
Vary the amount by the length of your stay. For a day-long, in-and-out trip, you may get by on your stores alone. For something longer, this stash will tide you over until you can get a feel for local conditions and figure out where to get reasonably safe food and water1. Bringing a few water purification tablets along would make sense too.
Be careful about avoiding anachronistic containers. I don't mean anything as elementary as a plastic water bottle or a granola bar wrapper: if you're taking those things back, you're officially too dumb for time travel2. Even something as apparently rustic as a canvas-lined metal Boy Scout canteen will be dubious in Shakespearean England, and hopelessly out of place in medieval Japan or ancient Rome. Look into leather waterskins, and wrap up your food in cloths.
5. Antibiotics, and other medicines
You're a long way from modern medicine, so you should bring a little of it with you. Something to keep a light wound from getting infected or a brush with sick livestock from giving you anthrax could be, literally, a life-saver. Ideally, you'll be able to zip back home if you get seriously sick or injured, but if these things were predictable, they wouldn't be emergencies.
Any other medical supplies you bring should be limited to absolute needs, like prescriptions, or possibly to potential trade goods (see #3 above). For your personal medicines, calculate the amount you’ll need for the length of your visit, and pack more.
You probably won't be able to avoid at least some anachronistic packaging for your medicines, not while keeping them effective. Make sure they're well concealed.
6. A period-appropriate weapon
The preferred purpose of this is not for actual use, but for deterrent effect. Back before modern police forces (meaning anytime before the 19th century), the best defense against robbery or assault was in not looking like an easy (and lucrative) target. In many cases, carrying these weapons will be male prerogatives, so female time-travelers will be at a disadvantage. (Women can probably get away with packing a gun in the Wild West, though.) As with money, I will expand on this in a later chapter.
7. A period-inappropriate weapon (or two)
You may be wearing a display weapon, but you don't want to use it. Not only are you liable to lose a swordfight or shootout, but winning could mean killing someone, with dire consequences to the timeline. That's why you will have a modern, non-lethal weapon tucked away on your person.
The great advantage here is that your assailant in the past is not going to recognize your weapon as a weapon. What does a Roman footpad know about pepper spray cans, or an English highwayman about tasers? Pulling these out will elicit mild curiosity rather than alarm. He might even come a little closer to get a better look -- and then your foe will literally not know what hit him. Neither will anyone believe him when he describes what was done to him, and the timeline will be secure.
Footnotes:
The safest form of water will likely be, ironically, alcohol. A small amount of alcohol can sterilize hazardous microbes in liquid. This is why the Greeks and Romans drank so much wine (often heavily diluted), and why Elizabethans, even children, downed so much beer (usually of quite low alcoholic content: hence "small beer"). Widespread abstinence from alcohol is a fairly modern phenomenon precisely because safe water supplies are a fairly modern phenomenon. A close second alternative is water that’s been boiled to kill the microbes. This goes best with some flavoring additive, which explains how coffee and tea became so popular (though not why they are such relatively recent innovations).
And if you do insist on taking such things, have the minimal sense to bring your trash back with you. Discovering an Aquafina bottle or a Pringles can in a medieval midden will just give some poor innocent archeologist a heart attack. Emergency rooms are burdened enough as it is.
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