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Time always looms large for travellers. Getting time off, for starters. Getting to that plane or train or bumpy bus on time. Hopefully having a good time. But there's also that other reason to pack a suitcase: Capturing one perfect moment in time – which often means

chasing some other era entirely. Maybe what it was like to walk with an Albertosaurus in prehistory. Or spin a prayer wheel in seventh-century Nepal. Or experience the Shanghai sleepovers that lie ahead. Herewith, eight places to tap into the past and get a glimpse of tomorrow from contributors Laszlo Buhasz, Patrick Dineen, Janet Forman, Wallace Immen, Dave LeBlanc, Eric Reguly and Jason Schoonover.

SHANGHAI, CHINA: THE NEW, NEW THING IN A NEXT-CENTURY CITY

For a glimpse of the 22nd century, visit Shanghai today. Cheekily reminiscent of an art deco dream by way of Buck Rogers, the city is an erupting architectural marvel with gleaming glass towers 80 storeys (and more) tall – all in a signature style that plays on both the country's expertise in electronics and a uniquely Shanghainese sense of luxury.

In fact, what's going up and up here is destined to endure in the same way as Christopher Wren's iconic construction in Carolingian London or Georges-Eugène Haussmann's Belle Epoque Paris. And each new building project seems to inspire another addition to the boom.

For example, the new Donghai bridge – at 32 kilometres, the longest sea bridge in the world – has spurred plans for six more just as remarkable by 2020.

Likewise, the Grand Hyatt's spiralling 88-storey Jin Mao tower has become a challenge to other architects building a dozen other skyscrapers in the Pudong district to literally “top this.”

Even parks and public spaces seem to be in on the futuristic dare, using modern fibre optics to make open areas glow at night. And stalls that once sold handicrafts have been transformed into bleeding-edge gadget booths where clerks haggle in dozens of languages with the help of hand-held

calculators and hands-free cellphones.

All of which draws an ever-increasing number of deal-makers, artists and architects to Shanghai. Although even with a population between 14 million and 20 million (depending on whether you believe the official numbers), this city is so big you can still stroll almost anywhere without feeling crowded.

It all makes Manhattan seem so quaintly last century.

For information on the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, visit the website shanghai.grand.hyatt.com. For tourism information, visit lyw.sh.gov.cn/en.

Wallace Immen

WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY: BEEHIVES, LIME RICKEYS AND ATOMIC ARCHITECTURE

Sleepovers like Wildwood's Caribbean Motel – a low, banana-coloured building with a Jetsons-style ramp that evokes 1958 more than 2008 – were once as common as sunburns and saltwater taffy on the Jersey shore.

But while such mid-century marvels endured flower power, Nixon and yuppies, they haven't quite withstood the tidal wave of 21st-century real-estate speculation. Despite being heralded by the international press as a hub of atomic-age resort architecture, city planners in this town of just over 5,000 (which swells to 250,000 in summer months) have allowed a construction boom resulting in the ka-booming of dozens of iconic, swoopy-roofed buildings.

This means that true immersion into a bygone era of beehives, tail fins and lime rickeys (rumoured to have been invented here) requires a somewhat construction-blinkered tour down the town's main drag. And Ocean and Atlantic avenues are no longer home to motels such as the Satellite, the Ebb Tide or the Polynesian-inspired Kona Kai.

Still, for hard-core architourists, a vintage motelscape – not to mention the world's largest collection of plastic palm trees, christened Palmus Plasticus Wildwoodii – does remain. And rooms, many dressed up in period-specific decor, are available for $60 to $200 a night, just a 90-minute drive from Philadelphia or three hours from New York.

As for the future? At least some motel owners are almost religious in their dedication to “Doo Wop” architecture: The two lawyers based in Washington, D.C., who outbid rabid developers and purchased the Caribbean in 2004 proudly hung a banner last summer proclaiming, “Preservation is cool.”

For more information on Wildwood's architecture, visit doowopusa.org. Details on the Caribbean's retro rooms are available at caribbeanmotel.com. Or to see an example of a newly constructed vintage motel, visit www.thestarlux.com. Dave LeBlanc

ROME, ITALY: EARLY CHRISTIAN SPiRITUALITY – AND SANCTUARY

Turn a corner in Rome and in an instant you can go from the 20th century to the medieval era, from the Renaissance to the age of Caesar. Think of it as time travel on the hoof.

On the Aventine hill, for example, a five-minute walk can plunge us through the ages, from the 1950s apartment where we live, located near a hellishly noisy fire station, to a tranquil pocket of fifth-century Rome.

The pocket is dominated by the world's oldest intact basilica, Santa Sabina, built between 422 and 432 AD, when the Roman Empire was dying and the Christian church was coming alive.

It is a classic example of early Christian architecture, with a massive, though simple and airy, nave ringed by 24 Corinthian columns looted from ancient Roman buildings. The windows are made of translucent selenite, a variety of crystalline gypsum. When the sun shines, the interior is bathed in a pale yellow light that is not quite of this planet. Of the 18 panels on the basilica's original wooden doors, the most famous shows the earliest depiction of the crucifixion of Christ. There is no cross – he hangs from a beam.

Just beyond the basilica, meanwhile, is the Clivus Publicii, Rome's first paved road, also intact and blissfully limited to walkers. It winds its way down to the Tiber River.

But it's Santa Sabina that has become my family's sanctuary. Pope Benedict XVI adores it, too; he celebrates Ash Wednesday there. Like us, he must appreciate not just the history, but the respite from the bedlam of modern Rome.

The Basilica di Santa Sabina all'Aventino is located on the Piazza Pietro d'Illiria. The doors open from 6:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. and from 3 to 7 p.m.

Eric Reguly

MONUMENT VALLEY, ARIZONA: A TRIP TO AN OTHERWORLDLY FUTURE

Drive south from the dusty town of Mexican Hat in Utah, cross into northeastern Arizona, and in 30 minutes the two-lane blacktop winds into an otherworldly landscape that bears a close resemblance to what astronauts of the future are likely to find on Mars.

This is Monument Valley, the most visually spectacular corner of the 70,000-square-kilometre Navajo Indian Reservation that spills east into neighbouring New Mexico and north into Utah. Vast stretches of red sand and shifting dunes surround towering buttes – the hard-stone roots of volcanoes carved into fantastic shapes by 10 million years of erosion.

The Navajo named this place Tse Bii'Ndzisgaii, or “there is a treeless place amid the rocks,” an apt description for a region that sees less than 23 centimetres of rain a year. And since the Navajo have preserved the valley as a tribal park, the best way to experience this dry, alien geography is to pay admission and take the 27-kilometre, self-guided scenic drive from the park headquarters among monoliths with names such as Sun's Eye, Rain God Mesa and Elephant Butte.

Here, visitors will find an uncanny resemblance to the arid, red-sand images sent back from the Red Planet by the Mars Rover.

For more information, visit www.navajonationparks.org/htm/monumentvalley.htm. Laszlo Buhasz

TOKYO, JAPAN: ANCIENT RITUALS, VERY BIG MEN

There seems to be little left from the era of shoguns, wood-block prints and kabuki in ever-bleeping, ever-blinking, high-tech Tokyo. Except in the Ryogoku district, where wrestlers bunk down at sumo stables, bulk up on a hearty stew called chanko-nabe and compete at the 10,000-seat Kokugikan stadium in a sport that evolved in the time of the samurai.

Originating as a religious observance to the Shinto gods, sumo was a court ritual from about 250 to 552 AD. This could be why wrestlers spend more time preparing for a bout – which lasts a matter of seconds – than fighting. Before a match, their hair is elaborately knotted in the shape of a gingko leaf and they toss salt into the clay ring (or dohyo) for

purification.

Despite the fact that many top wrestlers are from other countries, all are expected to adopt the traditions of sumo. As are the referees, who wear elaborate silk outfits based on medieval Japanese dress from the period of the Ashikaga shoguns, the rulers of Japan from about 1330 to 1570.

Sumo is also a totally hierarchical sport, where opponents are respected. At the three Tokyo tournaments (or hon-basho) that take place every year – in January, May and September – there is no dancing in the end zone or over-the-top theatrics after a victory.

As Takanohana, only the 65th person to reach the top rank of grand champion, recently put it: “The Japanese find beauty not in the winning or losing itself; for them, it is the embodiment of committing one's everything – body and soul – in that moment. So it has been since the Edo period. The wrestlers bow to their partners before and after each bout in a show of gratitude.”

Not everyone shares this gratitude, though. As the dominance of foreign wrestlers suggests, attracting homegrown recruits to a sport defined by rigidity and Spartan sacrifice could eventually make tournaments as scarce as shops selling last year's laptops.

For more information on dates and tickets, visit www.sumo.or.jp/eng/. Free headsets with English commentary are available.

Patrick Dineen

KAGBENI, NEPAL: THE SEVENTH-CENTURY SOUNDTRACK OF THE HIMALAYAS

While population shifts, pollution and the encroachment of iPods are unleashing a monsoon of change on Kathmandu, 200 kilometres to the west is a tiny town safely stuck in the seventh century – one reason that the strenuous route around the stunning Annapurna massif has become the most popular trek in the country.

One of only three river-based passes into Tibet, the town of Kagbeni was once a major crossroad for the salt trade south and the barley, spice and textile trades north. But these routes are now in decline because of China's sway over Tibet – which means this city nestled at the top of the 300-kilometre Annapurna Circuit has been spared from modernization.

To get here means a flight or all-day bus ride from Kathmandu to Pokhara. At which point ubiquitous trekking agencies can help visitors hike around the region – or trekkers can strike out independently, staying at basic guest houses scattered along the way.

But for those seeking that perfect off-the-calendar (and off-the-grid) moment, any mode of arrival delivers: The town is made up mainly of narrow streets squeezed between high walls and low-rise, flat-topped mud buildings. The historic influence of Tibetan Buddhism is also on display in the local stupa, a gompa fortification, colourful prayer flags fluttering everywhere and the requisite rows of mani stones.

As for the soundtrack to a visit here? With residents carrying on as they have for centuries – winnowing and milling buckwheat, churning salt butter and whirling hand-held prayer wheels – visitors are most likely to hear the tinkling bells of caravans and the chanting of ancient mantras such as Om mani padmi hum: “Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus.”

Maps and trail guides to Kagbeni are readily available on the Annapurna Circuit.

Jason Schoonover

BERLIN, GERMANY: DIETRICH-INSPIRED DECADENCE

Berlin flamed into the Roaring Twenties with a rebellious burst of dissonant music, stark Bauhaus design and defiant Dadaist art. Jazz joints wailed until dawn, street contortionists and dancing bears titillated the children, and Josephine Baker shimmied in a fringe of banana leaves and little else. And now that a wall no longer divides the city, that audacious spirit is returning.

The period's Expressionist design crops up among the skyscrapers in surprising spots, such as the U-Bahn entry sign at Franzosische Strasse and the glass block walls of Krumme Lanke station.

Classic architecture is also being transformed for new uses. The 1920s-era stone-and-brass façade that housed the notorious Femina Palace (a club where flappers once flirted across tabletop telephones) was transformed into the Ellington Hotel last year.

Four train stops from the Zoo station to Friedrichstrasse, meanwhile, is Admiralspalast – an incarnation of the hedonistic “amusement palaces” of the past, with a cabaret, concert halls, grand café and even an art nouveau steam bath.

Yet it's across the Spree at Hackesche Höfe, a sprawl of eight interlocking 1907 courtyards, where the age of Charlestons and spinning roulette wheels feels most alive. At the 19th-century ballroom Clärchens Ballhaus, couples once again tango, cha-cha and tea dance amid floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

And cabarets such as Chamäleon Varieté offer steamy acrobatics, outré comedy and a lusty chanteuse that echoes the era's iconic femme fatale – a tuxedo-clad Dietrich, crooning from her stool at the Blue Angel.

For more information on the U-Bahn stations, visit mic-ro.com/metro/berlin.html. Or visit sites for specific hotels and attractions such as Ellington Hotel (www.ellington-hotel.com), the Admiralspalast (www.admiralspalast.de), the Chamäleon Varieté (www.chamaeleonberlin.com) and Clärchens Ballhaus (www.ballhaus.de).

Janet Forman

BADLANDS, ALBERTA: THE ROAD TO PREHISTORY

Calgary may be in the midst of a business bonanza, awash in new money and new construction. Head about two hours northeast, though, and a series of valleys reveals a rather different motherlode: 70 million years of geological history and the bones of prehistoric predators such as the fearsome Albertosaurus.

Dubbed les mauvaises terres à traverser (or “bad lands to cross”) by the French trappers and traders who first explored here, the Badlands around the Red Deer River Valley are a storehouse of ancient plant, animal and marine life that stretches from the former coal-mining town of Drumheller to Dinosaur Provincial Park.

Start near Drumheller to explore a landscape shaped by sediment that flowed millions of years ago from streams emptying into what was then a shallow sea. Then see the remains harvested from the ancient soil at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. It is the largest museum of its kind, holding close to 120,000 specimens, including 40 full-size dinosaur skeletons.

The real treasure trove for paleontologists, however, is Dinosaur Provincial Park. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, this abyss of ancient rock – which looks like a vast garden of gullies and buttes – has some of the most extensive fossil remains in the world. So far, it has yielded up more than 300 remains from 35 species, many found nowhere else.

Go, as I did, on a ranger-guided tour of otherwise restricted areas to discover the clustered fossils of hundreds of clams that were buried in an underwater mudslide millions of years ago. And see, nearby, a scooped-out section of a hill with a brass spike marking the spot where the best specimen ever found of an Ornithomimid, a carnivorous animal built something like an emu, was unearthed in 1996.

For more information, visit tyrrellmuseum.com and Dinosaur Provincial Park's website at tprc.alberta.ca/parks/dinosaur.

Laszlo Buhasz

Which destinations on your travel list allow you to tap into the past or get a glimpse of tomorrow? Have you been somewhere that you felt took you through time?

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