Sharon Ledwith’s book, The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis, is out now! I’m pleased to welcome her to my blog where she talks about where she would go if she could time travel:

5 Places I’d love to visit if I could time travel…

One of the interview questions I ask other middle-grade/young adult authors on my blog is, If you could time travel anywhere into Earth’s past, where would you go and why? I’ve gotten so many answers, many of them unique and original. I’ve even posed this question to elementary students when I’ve done an author visit. And you know what? Most kids say that they’d travel back to the time period to when their parents were their age so they can meet them.

Didn’t see that one coming!

The kids’ response got me thinking. Where would I like to go, if given the opportunity to time travel into the past? My answers both surprised and delighted me. Here are my top five picks:

1. Atlantis – I know, go figure, but I believe it was a real place and not a myth. I’ve done too much research to know this. My gut tells me Atlantis existed. However, I wouldn’t want to go back there when things, let’s say got little shaky and wet, for the Atlanteans!

2. Ancient Egypt – this timeline is very hard to pinpoint. I’ve just done a bucket load of research in this era for the prequel to my time travel series, The Legend of the Timekeepers. Egypt, it seems, was rumored as a place where many Atlantean refugees settled after the destruction of Atlantis. So if there’s any truth to these myths, I’d love to go back and see what the Atlanteans did with their clean slate.

3. Mayan Civilization (Central America) – I’d love to go during their Classic period (250 C.E. to 900 C.E.) because it seems the Mayans reached their peak in this era with advanced science, art, and architecture. It makes me wonder what the Spanish Conquistadors destroyed and stole from this advance civilization. Oh yeah, and believe it or not, the Mayan pyramids are older than the Egyptian pyramids.

4. Greece (336-323 B.C.E.), during the reign of Alexander the Great – this man is a legend. Not only did he create the largest empire in the ancient world, he built new Greek-style cities like Alexandria in Egypt. Scholars came to Alexandria from all over the Greek world to study and discuss new ideas. Would have loved to visit his legendary library!

5. France in the 1800s, during the time of the French novelists – meeting the Three Musketeers’, Quasimodo’s, and Captain Nemo’s creators would be the icing on the cake for me. Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Jules Verne not only created great literary works, but managed to leave a legacy behind that will live for generations to come. These novelists were true trailblazers in every sense of the word.

There you have it. My top five place picks I’d love to visit if I could travel back in time. So where would you blaze into the past to visit? Love to hear your choices!

Children are the keys to our future.
And now, children are the only hope for our past.