fast 10 time travel

Fast X Makes It Clear: The Next Step For The Series Is Time Travel, And We're Only Kinda Joking

This article contains massive spoilers for "Fast X."

If there's a guiding principle to the "Fast & Furious" franchise, it's best summed up by one Cady Heron: the limit does not exist . After all, this is a series that, in the very first movie of the franchise, features street racing scenes where the cars go so fast they appear to travel into a psychedelic hyperspace — there's a legitimate argument to be made that "The Fast and the Furious" influenced the Wachowski's work on "Speed Racer," for cryin' out loud. Despite what a recent Twitter debate begun by people who clearly haven't been paying attention posited, the Fast Saga has never troubled itself with resembling any sort of reality.

With "Fast X," the franchise is now 10 (or 11, counting "Hobbs & Shaw") films deep, and each successive installment has seen increasingly improbable events occur. A few examples: cars being able to fly across bridges and drop safely from airplanes, characters coming back from the dead in increasingly convoluted ways, and a mission that featured two members of the Fast Family actually flying a Pontiac Fiero into outer space in order to destroy a satellite by ramming into it, and that's just for starters.

"Fast X" eagerly tries to top all that's come before in the series with such wild elements like a boulder-sized bomb rolling around the streets of Rome (while on fire), Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) driving his Dodge Charger down the face of a dam, and the appearance of Pete Davidson. Where can the series possibly go next? If the clues this writer is reading within "Fast X" are any indication, the Fast Saga has but one incredible destination ahead: time travel.

Technically, time travel has already sorta kinda happened in the Fast Saga

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, however, it's first important to acknowledge that the Fast Saga has technically already dealt with a form of time travel. This particular brand of time travel doesn't actually involve people getting into machines or vehicles and going to another time period, but rather lies in the way director, co-producer and co-writer of multiple "Fast" entries, Justin Lin, moved the timeline of the series around in order to keep Han Lue (Sung Kang) alive and drifting far past his expiration date.

When Han tragically dies during the events of 2006's "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," it seemed that his demise was due to that film's plot involving a quarrel with some criminals, including the Yakuza. However, Lin was inspired by a fateful trip to Arby's with Kang soon after "Tokyo Drift" to not just come back for another installment but to keep Han alive. As he told EW in 2021:

"...we stopped at Arby's for lunch in central California, off the 5 freeway, some tiny town. All of a sudden these kids saw Sung and they were like, 'Han!' He's being swarmed. It was the first time feeling that kind of impact. I still remember, I was driving on the on-ramp back after lunch and I said, 'God, it's too bad Han is dead.' Sung looked at me and said, 'Does he have to be?' I was like, 'Oh, this is everything I was talking to Vin about, the connection. We can actually now see and create our own timeline and mythology.'"

As a result of that Beef n' Cheddar lunch, Lin brought Han back for three subsequent installments, before finally having the timeline catch up to "Tokyo Drift" at the end of 2013's "Fast & Furious."

'Fast X' is to 'Avengers: Infinity War' what 'Fast 11' could be to 'Avengers: Endgame'

During his commentary track for "F9," Lin explains how he tackled the fan theory/meme about bringing the Fast Family into space for that film and goes on to describe the franchise's wonky timeline as a way to hand-wave away any fan theories about time travel. Yet stranger things have happened. Although Lin originally intended for Han to remain dead, he came back for "F9" to resurrect the character as a response to the "Justice For Han" movement, providing a wonderfully convoluted flashback story involving Han faking his own death with help from Kurt Russell's Mr. Nobody.

The Fast Saga is far from the only cinematic franchise that sees characters returning from the grave, but it is (so far) the only one where it's done without the use of magic, superpowers, or time travel. The Marvel Cinematic Universe had no problem using actual time travel to pull that trick in 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," where a past version of Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) was brought back to the future in the process of allowing the Avengers to basically do over their battle with Thanos (Josh Brolin).

As fate would have it, "Fast X" strongly resembles the "Avengers" film preceding "Endgame," 2018's "Infinity War." In that movie as in "Fast X," the ending involves a cliffhanger where a large portion of the heroes appear to have met their demise or are at least finding death imminent. With the possible exception of Jakob (John Cena), who plows directly into a group of enemy vehicles to save Dom and his nephew, Little B (Leo Abelo Perry), the characters who die in "Fast X" do so offscreen, leaving some wiggle room for the next film to provide barely plausible explanations for any of them surviving. Yet if the "Fast" filmmakers are using the "Avengers" films as a template, they might just go ahead and introduce time travel as a way of bringing the family back together.

Gotta go fast, dam it!

The final moments of "Fast X" don't merely recall "Infinity War"; in fact, they strongly resemble another superhero classic altogether. In "Fast X," Dom and Little B are cornered by Dante around a dam in Portugal, and Dom manages to escape Dante's trap of two remote-controlled tanker trucks wired to explode on top of the dam by revving his Charger and careening headfirst down the side of the dam while the trucks detonate above him.

Of course, this means that the car plunges into the rushing river below, and though Dom and Little B manage to get out of the car safely, it leaves them without any means of escape. Knowing this, Dante reveals that he's wired the entire dam to explode, with Dom and Little B left helpless at the bottom of the structure.

Escaping or fixing a collapsing dam seems pretty impossible — unless, of course, you may have a way of turning back time to do so. That's exactly what Kal-El, last son of Krypton, does during the finale of 1978's "Superman," using his super-speed to literally move the Earth back in time. Of course, he's doing so in order to save the life of his beloved Lois (Margot Kidder), but in the process, he manages to fix most of the catastrophic damage that's befallen the West Coast as a result of Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) and his missile attack, including the collapsing Hoover dam that threatens the life of Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure).

Could this dam incident in "Fast X" be another clue that time travel is happening in the next "Fast" film? It wouldn't be at all out of bounds for the series if Dom, bereft at the loss of his friends and victory of his foe, gets his hands on a car that goes so fast it breaks the time barrier.

Great Scott! A heavy clue

Speaking of time-traveling cars, one of the earliest twists in "Fast X" involves new villain Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) forcing former villain Cipher (Charlize Theron) to regroup after he performs a hostile takeover of her mercenary gang. Of all places, Cipher turns to Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) for help after Dante's attack. Bruised and bloody, she pulls up to the Toretto homestead in a prototype DeLorean Alpha 5.

Of course, the DeLorean's cinematic legacy is considerable and centered around one franchise in particular: the "Back to the Future" films, in which the classic '80s DeLorean is used as the series' main method of time travel. Just as Lin was cognizant of the "Fast" fans' time travel theories, "Fast X" director Louis Leterrier is also well aware of the idea and deliberately sought out using the prototype DeLorean as a way of having cheeky fun with the fans. Speaking to Collider, Leterrier described his reasoning for this:

"...at one point there was a leaked image of the Cannon car that went on the internet, and then people went crazy, and they thought that after going to space, we're going to do time travel. [Laughs] So like, after space travel was going to be time travel. And then I was like, 'Oh, I will have people go crazy by having the DeLorean pull up with shoes that look like futuristic shoes come out,' and then I was like, 'Oh yeah, let's have fun with it all.'"

Could that be all the DeLorean's appearance is? Just a playful wink to the fan theories? Or could it be something deeper, something hiding in plain sight?

Cipher is the key

Whatever turns out to be the case, it seems clear from "Fast X" that something very suspicious is going on with Cipher. For one thing, the character has thus far been shown to be someone several steps ahead of everyone else, and even though she was captured by competitors during the events of "F9" and allows herself to be removed by the Agency to a Black Site in "Fast X," she's always got a reason for being where she is as well as an escape plan.

For another, this appears to be a noticeably changed Cipher than the megalomaniacal villain we've come to know. Sure, the Fast Saga is notorious for having characters switch sides as well as personalities; in this movie alone, Jakob changes from a brooding superspy and spurned younger brother to a lovable, kooky uncle. Yet Cipher isn't acting contrite and trying to get Dom and the rest of the family to accept her with open arms in the way the Shaw brothers (Luke Evans and Jason Statham) or Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) did in prior entries. Instead, it appears that enlisting Dom and Letty's help is part of whatever plan she's enacting, one that culminates (for now) with the reveal that Cipher has a nuclear submarine in the Arctic, piloted by another previously deceased character: Gisele Yashar (Gal Gadot).

Perhaps, however, this isn't an instance of Cipher managing to find another submarine after the one she tried to steal at the end of "The Fate of the Furious" was destroyed, and perhaps this isn't another instance of a character having faked their apparent death. What if the Cipher in "Fast X" isn't arriving directly from her encounter with Dante, but is instead coming from the future (or an otherwise different timeline) where she's already put the pieces of her ultimate plan in motion?

They have the technology

If there's one thing the "Fast" films have proven time and again, it's that cars can do whatever they want in this universe. That principle has been expanded over the entries to include all sorts of next-level technologies, from the world-ending-tech MacGuffins the family is asked to chase after (the Nightshade, the God's Eye, Project Aries) to the abilities of the super-secret spy agency dubbed, well, the Agency.

In "Fast X," it turns out that the Agency Black Site where Letty and Cipher are interred includes a super special laser thingy that has the ability to heal wounds pretty effectively. Not only does this offer a sort of back-door notion for making once critically-injured (maybe even dead) people healthy again, it also implies that the Agency and the Fast universe may include a far wilder assortment of advanced technology that we've yet to see. After all, the plot of "Hobbs & Shaw" involved the titular duo fighting against a techno-terrorism cult named Eteon, whose chief representative had cyborg enhancements that gave him pseudo-superhero powers.

Thanks to all these clues, the fans' time travel theories won't be quelled by the cheeky efforts of Leterrier or others after "Fast X" — in fact, they'll only grow in popularity. One devotee of the theory is half of the music duo The Living Tombstone (and sometimes comedy musician who co-writes unbiasedly amazing songs ), Sam Haft, who at this point is convinced that time travel is already a fait accompli for the franchise. We're not as sure, but if it turns out to be the case, just know that we told you so.

Is Time Travel Possible?

We all travel in time! We travel one year in time between birthdays, for example. And we are all traveling in time at approximately the same speed: 1 second per second.

We typically experience time at one second per second. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's space telescopes also give us a way to look back in time. Telescopes help us see stars and galaxies that are very far away . It takes a long time for the light from faraway galaxies to reach us. So, when we look into the sky with a telescope, we are seeing what those stars and galaxies looked like a very long time ago.

However, when we think of the phrase "time travel," we are usually thinking of traveling faster than 1 second per second. That kind of time travel sounds like something you'd only see in movies or science fiction books. Could it be real? Science says yes!

This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxies that are very far away as they existed a very long time ago. Credit: NASA, ESA and R. Thompson (Univ. Arizona)

How do we know that time travel is possible?

More than 100 years ago, a famous scientist named Albert Einstein came up with an idea about how time works. He called it relativity. This theory says that time and space are linked together. Einstein also said our universe has a speed limit: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (186,000 miles per second).

Einstein's theory of relativity says that space and time are linked together. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What does this mean for time travel? Well, according to this theory, the faster you travel, the slower you experience time. Scientists have done some experiments to show that this is true.

For example, there was an experiment that used two clocks set to the exact same time. One clock stayed on Earth, while the other flew in an airplane (going in the same direction Earth rotates).

After the airplane flew around the world, scientists compared the two clocks. The clock on the fast-moving airplane was slightly behind the clock on the ground. So, the clock on the airplane was traveling slightly slower in time than 1 second per second.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Can we use time travel in everyday life?

We can't use a time machine to travel hundreds of years into the past or future. That kind of time travel only happens in books and movies. But the math of time travel does affect the things we use every day.

For example, we use GPS satellites to help us figure out how to get to new places. (Check out our video about how GPS satellites work .) NASA scientists also use a high-accuracy version of GPS to keep track of where satellites are in space. But did you know that GPS relies on time-travel calculations to help you get around town?

GPS satellites orbit around Earth very quickly at about 8,700 miles (14,000 kilometers) per hour. This slows down GPS satellite clocks by a small fraction of a second (similar to the airplane example above).

GPS satellites orbit around Earth at about 8,700 miles (14,000 kilometers) per hour. Credit: GPS.gov

However, the satellites are also orbiting Earth about 12,550 miles (20,200 km) above the surface. This actually speeds up GPS satellite clocks by a slighter larger fraction of a second.

Here's how: Einstein's theory also says that gravity curves space and time, causing the passage of time to slow down. High up where the satellites orbit, Earth's gravity is much weaker. This causes the clocks on GPS satellites to run faster than clocks on the ground.

The combined result is that the clocks on GPS satellites experience time at a rate slightly faster than 1 second per second. Luckily, scientists can use math to correct these differences in time.

If scientists didn't correct the GPS clocks, there would be big problems. GPS satellites wouldn't be able to correctly calculate their position or yours. The errors would add up to a few miles each day, which is a big deal. GPS maps might think your home is nowhere near where it actually is!

In Summary:

Yes, time travel is indeed a real thing. But it's not quite what you've probably seen in the movies. Under certain conditions, it is possible to experience time passing at a different rate than 1 second per second. And there are important reasons why we need to understand this real-world form of time travel.

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Vin Diesel Reveals ‘Fast & Furious 10’ Official Title; Fans React, ‘Time Travel Or Multiverse?’

• Vin Diesel unveiled the official poster for “Fast and Furious 10” on Instagram
• Some fans poked fun at the announcement and shared their theories on what could be next for the characters
• One jokingly suggested that “Fast X” could be about time travel or the multiverse

Vin Diesel has unveiled the official title poster for the next “Fast & Furious” film, and fans gave different reactions while referencing the various adventures the stars of the franchise went through in the previous movies.

The 54-year-old Hollywood actor took to Instagram Wednesday to share the title poster for the project, officially titled “Fast X.”

Without spilling much, he confirmed that production has already started by writing “Day one” in the caption.

A post shared by instagram

Immediately after uploading the post, Diesel sparked mixed reactions from his followers and the fans of the franchise on social media. Many poked fun at the announcement as they guessed what could be coming next for Diesel’s Dom Toretto and the rest of the cast.

“What is this now? Time travel or multiverse?” one jokingly asked on Diesel’s Instagram post.

“Who are you guys gonna fight? The Avengers?” another added.

“Maybe this time 'Fast X’ will reach Mars,” a third user commented.

“'Fast X’s’ villain will be yet another member of Don’s family we didn’t know existed,” a fan wrote on Twitter alongside a meme featuring Darth Vader.

Another pointed out the similarity between the title posters of “Fast X” and that of the 2002 horror/sci-fi flick “Jason X,” claiming that the former made a not-so-obvious “copy” of the latter.

Sure, you can copy my homework, just don’t make it too obvious. #FastX #JasonX pic.twitter.com/f8EhCfmCdL — Meghan McCain’s Trashy Side Account (@Matty2857) April 20, 2022

“Make it about cars or just don’t release it at all,” a different netizen stated.

Details about the plot of the next installment have been kept under wraps so far. But Collider has learned that it would be the first of the two films that would bring the “Fast” family saga to an end.

Early this year, the project made headlines after Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson confirmed that he refused to return to the franchise after Diesel made a social media post asking him to reprise his role as Luke Hobbs for the last time.

Diesel and Johnson previously worked together on “Fast Five,” “Fast and Furious 6” and “Furious 7.” However, they got into an argument while filming “The Fate of the Furious” in 2016, prompting Johnson to exit the franchise.

Even though Johnson won’t be part of the next film, big stars have been tapped to solidify the star power of “Fast X.” Jason Momoa, Brie Larson and Daniela Melchior were confirmed to take part in the project, alongside returnees Ludacris, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Sung Kang, as per Deadline .

Justin Lin will direct and produce the picture alongside Diesel. “Fast X” is expected to hit cinemas on May 18, 2023.

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Time travel: five ways that we could do it

Cathal O’Connell

Cathal O'Connell is a science writer based in Melbourne.

In 2009 the British physicist Stephen Hawking held a party for time travellers – the twist was he sent out the invites a year later (No guests showed up). Time travel is probably impossible. Even if it were possible, Hawking and others have argued that you could never travel back before the moment your time machine was built.

But travel to the future? That’s a different story.

Of course, we are all time travellers as we are swept along in the current of time, from past to future, at a rate of one hour per hour.

But, as with a river, the current flows at different speeds in different places. Science as we know it allows for several methods to take the fast-track into the future. Here’s a rundown.

1. Time travel via speed

This is the easiest and most practical way to time travel into the far future – go really fast.

According to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, when you travel at speeds approaching the speed of light, time slows down for you relative to the outside world.

This is not a just a conjecture or thought experiment – it’s been measured. Using twin atomic clocks (one flown in a jet aircraft, the other stationary on Earth) physicists have shown that a flying clock ticks slower, because of its speed.

In the case of the aircraft, the effect is minuscule. But If you were in a spaceship travelling at 90% of the speed of light, you’d experience time passing about 2.6 times slower than it was back on Earth.

And the closer you get to the speed of light, the more extreme the time-travel.

Computer solves a major time travel problem

The highest speeds achieved through any human technology are probably the protons whizzing around the Large Hadron Collider at 99.9999991% of the speed of light. Using special relativity we can calculate one second for the proton is equivalent to 27,777,778 seconds, or about 11 months , for us.

Amazingly, particle physicists have to take this time dilation into account when they are dealing with particles that decay. In the lab, muon particles typically decay in 2.2 microseconds. But fast moving muons, such as those created when cosmic rays strike the upper atmosphere, take 10 times longer to disintegrate.

2. Time travel via gravity

The next method of time travel is also inspired by Einstein. According to his theory of general relativity, the stronger the gravity you feel, the slower time moves.

As you get closer to the centre of the Earth, for example, the strength of gravity increases. Time runs slower for your feet than your head.

Again, this effect has been measured. In 2010, physicists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) placed two atomic clocks on shelves, one 33 centimetres above the other, and measured the difference in their rate of ticking. The lower one ticked slower because it feels a slightly stronger gravity.

To travel to the far future, all we need is a region of extremely strong gravity, such as a black hole. The closer you get to the event horizon, the slower time moves – but it’s risky business, cross the boundary and you can never escape.

And anyway, the effect is not that strong so it’s probably not worth the trip.

Assuming you had the technology to travel the vast distances to reach a black hole (the nearest is about 3,000 light years away), the time dilation through travelling would be far greater than any time dilation through orbiting the black hole itself.

(The situation described in the movie Interstellar , where one hour on a planet near a black hole is the equivalent of seven years back on Earth, is so extreme as to be impossible in our Universe, according to Kip Thorne, the movie’s scientific advisor.)

The most mindblowing thing, perhaps, is that GPS systems have to account for time dilation effects (due to both the speed of the satellites and gravity they feel) in order to work. Without these corrections, your phones GPS capability wouldn’t be able to pinpoint your location on Earth to within even a few kilometres.

3. Time travel via suspended animation

Another way to time travel to the future may be to slow your perception of time by slowing down, or stopping, your bodily processes and then restarting them later.

Bacterial spores can live for millions of years in a state of suspended animation, until the right conditions of temperature, moisture, food kick start their metabolisms again. Some mammals, such as bears and squirrels, can slow down their metabolism during hibernation, dramatically reducing their cells’ requirement for food and oxygen.

Could humans ever do the same?

Though completely stopping your metabolism is probably far beyond our current technology, some scientists are working towards achieving inducing a short-term hibernation state lasting at least a few hours. This might be just enough time to get a person through a medical emergency, such as a cardiac arrest, before they can reach the hospital.

In 2005, American scientists demonstrated a way to slow the metabolism of mice (which do not hibernate) by exposing them to minute doses of hydrogen sulphide, which binds to the same cell receptors as oxygen. The core body temperature of the mice dropped to 13 °C and metabolism decreased 10-fold. After six hours the mice could be reanimated without ill effects.

Unfortunately, similar experiments on sheep and pigs were not successful, suggesting the method might not work for larger animals.

Another method, which induces a hypothermic hibernation by replacing the blood with a cold saline solution, has worked on pigs and is currently undergoing human clinical trials in Pittsburgh.

4. Time travel via wormholes

General relativity also allows for the possibility for shortcuts through spacetime, known as wormholes, which might be able to bridge distances of a billion light years or more, or different points in time.

Many physicists, including Stephen Hawking, believe wormholes are constantly popping in and out of existence at the quantum scale, far smaller than atoms. The trick would be to capture one, and inflate it to human scales – a feat that would require a huge amount of energy, but which might just be possible, in theory.

Attempts to prove this either way have failed, ultimately because of the incompatibility between general relativity and quantum mechanics.

5. Time travel using light

Another time travel idea, put forward by the American physicist Ron Mallet, is to use a rotating cylinder of light to twist spacetime. Anything dropped inside the swirling cylinder could theoretically be dragged around in space and in time, in a similar way to how a bubble runs around on top your coffee after you swirl it with a spoon.

According to Mallet, the right geometry could lead to time travel into either the past and the future.

Since publishing his theory in 2000, Mallet has been trying to raise the funds to pay for a proof of concept experiment, which involves dropping neutrons through a circular arrangement of spinning lasers.

His ideas have not grabbed the rest of the physics community however, with others arguing that one of the assumptions of his basic model is plagued by a singularity, which is physics-speak for “it’s impossible”.

The Royal Institution of Australia has an Education resource based on this article. You can access it here .

Related Reading: Computer solves a major time travel problem

Originally published by Cosmos as Time travel: five ways that we could do it

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Home » Hollywood News

Fast & Furious 10, 11: Vin Diesel Is Planning To Induce Time Travel In Concluding Instalments?

Vin diesel plans to use time travel in the final installments of the fast & furious franchise..

Fast & Furious 9 is yet to hit the big screens in many parts of the world, but it is already roaring in the ones lesser dominated by the pandemic. The makers have given the audience what they wanted, and the cine-goers are happy with the outcome. But while we in India wait for the release, the work on the concluding saga is divided into two parts, which are F10 & F11, which have already begun. And if the reports are to go by, Vin Diesel has a special demand.

For the unversed, the team of Fast & Furious has already announced that the franchise will end after the last two installments (10 & 11). Diesel had also spoken about how they are doing everything possible to make it the conclusion to the labor of love that has spanned two decades. Now the grapevine has that Vin has some super ambitious plans for 5ye Fast saga and he wants to travel time as he bids goodbye. Read on to know everything you should about the same.

With time the makers have been upping the meter in terms of suspension of disbelief. Take Hobbs & Shaw for instance, where Idris Elba ’s cybernetically enhanced super-soldier Brixton possessed weapons in his body. He was the introduction of the sci-fi element to the universe and seems like Vin plans to make it even more insane now.

As per a, We Got This Covered report, Vin Diesel is planning to induce time travel in Fast & Furious 10 & 11. How, when, and where exactly is yet a question that only the makers or Vin can answer. But looking at the ambitious idea one can only stay hooked to it to see how it churns out.

Meanwhile, the same report says that the Fast & Furious 9 has hinted at this trajectory as Vin Diesel in a brief scene goes in the flashback and he sees his past in a way he hadn’t seen it the first time around. Now that is turning out to be impressive. How excited are you? Let us know in the comments section below.

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April 26, 2023

Is Time Travel Possible?

The laws of physics allow time travel. So why haven’t people become chronological hoppers?

By Sarah Scoles

yuanyuan yan/Getty Images

In the movies, time travelers typically step inside a machine and—poof—disappear. They then reappear instantaneously among cowboys, knights or dinosaurs. What these films show is basically time teleportation .

Scientists don’t think this conception is likely in the real world, but they also don’t relegate time travel to the crackpot realm. In fact, the laws of physics might allow chronological hopping, but the devil is in the details.

Time traveling to the near future is easy: you’re doing it right now at a rate of one second per second, and physicists say that rate can change. According to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, time’s flow depends on how fast you’re moving. The quicker you travel, the slower seconds pass. And according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity , gravity also affects clocks: the more forceful the gravity nearby, the slower time goes.

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“Near massive bodies—near the surface of neutron stars or even at the surface of the Earth, although it’s a tiny effect—time runs slower than it does far away,” says Dave Goldberg, a cosmologist at Drexel University.

If a person were to hang out near the edge of a black hole , where gravity is prodigious, Goldberg says, only a few hours might pass for them while 1,000 years went by for someone on Earth. If the person who was near the black hole returned to this planet, they would have effectively traveled to the future. “That is a real effect,” he says. “That is completely uncontroversial.”

Going backward in time gets thorny, though (thornier than getting ripped to shreds inside a black hole). Scientists have come up with a few ways it might be possible, and they have been aware of time travel paradoxes in general relativity for decades. Fabio Costa, a physicist at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, notes that an early solution with time travel began with a scenario written in the 1920s. That idea involved massive long cylinder that spun fast in the manner of straw rolled between your palms and that twisted spacetime along with it. The understanding that this object could act as a time machine allowing one to travel to the past only happened in the 1970s, a few decades after scientists had discovered a phenomenon called “closed timelike curves.”

“A closed timelike curve describes the trajectory of a hypothetical observer that, while always traveling forward in time from their own perspective, at some point finds themselves at the same place and time where they started, creating a loop,” Costa says. “This is possible in a region of spacetime that, warped by gravity, loops into itself.”

“Einstein read [about closed timelike curves] and was very disturbed by this idea,” he adds. The phenomenon nevertheless spurred later research.

Science began to take time travel seriously in the 1980s. In 1990, for instance, Russian physicist Igor Novikov and American physicist Kip Thorne collaborated on a research paper about closed time-like curves. “They started to study not only how one could try to build a time machine but also how it would work,” Costa says.

Just as importantly, though, they investigated the problems with time travel. What if, for instance, you tossed a billiard ball into a time machine, and it traveled to the past and then collided with its past self in a way that meant its present self could never enter the time machine? “That looks like a paradox,” Costa says.

Since the 1990s, he says, there’s been on-and-off interest in the topic yet no big breakthrough. The field isn’t very active today, in part because every proposed model of a time machine has problems. “It has some attractive features, possibly some potential, but then when one starts to sort of unravel the details, there ends up being some kind of a roadblock,” says Gaurav Khanna of the University of Rhode Island.

For instance, most time travel models require negative mass —and hence negative energy because, as Albert Einstein revealed when he discovered E = mc 2 , mass and energy are one and the same. In theory, at least, just as an electric charge can be positive or negative, so can mass—though no one’s ever found an example of negative mass. Why does time travel depend on such exotic matter? In many cases, it is needed to hold open a wormhole—a tunnel in spacetime predicted by general relativity that connects one point in the cosmos to another.

Without negative mass, gravity would cause this tunnel to collapse. “You can think of it as counteracting the positive mass or energy that wants to traverse the wormhole,” Goldberg says.

Khanna and Goldberg concur that it’s unlikely matter with negative mass even exists, although Khanna notes that some quantum phenomena show promise, for instance, for negative energy on very small scales. But that would be “nowhere close to the scale that would be needed” for a realistic time machine, he says.

These challenges explain why Khanna initially discouraged Caroline Mallary, then his graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, from doing a time travel project. Mallary and Khanna went forward anyway and came up with a theoretical time machine that didn’t require negative mass. In its simplistic form, Mallary’s idea involves two parallel cars, each made of regular matter. If you leave one parked and zoom the other with extreme acceleration, a closed timelike curve will form between them.

Easy, right? But while Mallary’s model gets rid of the need for negative matter, it adds another hurdle: it requires infinite density inside the cars for them to affect spacetime in a way that would be useful for time travel. Infinite density can be found inside a black hole, where gravity is so intense that it squishes matter into a mind-bogglingly small space called a singularity. In the model, each of the cars needs to contain such a singularity. “One of the reasons that there's not a lot of active research on this sort of thing is because of these constraints,” Mallary says.

Other researchers have created models of time travel that involve a wormhole, or a tunnel in spacetime from one point in the cosmos to another. “It's sort of a shortcut through the universe,” Goldberg says. Imagine accelerating one end of the wormhole to near the speed of light and then sending it back to where it came from. “Those two sides are no longer synced,” he says. “One is in the past; one is in the future.” Walk between them, and you’re time traveling.

You could accomplish something similar by moving one end of the wormhole near a big gravitational field—such as a black hole—while keeping the other end near a smaller gravitational force. In that way, time would slow down on the big gravity side, essentially allowing a particle or some other chunk of mass to reside in the past relative to the other side of the wormhole.

Making a wormhole requires pesky negative mass and energy, however. A wormhole created from normal mass would collapse because of gravity. “Most designs tend to have some similar sorts of issues,” Goldberg says. They’re theoretically possible, but there’s currently no feasible way to make them, kind of like a good-tasting pizza with no calories.

And maybe the problem is not just that we don’t know how to make time travel machines but also that it’s not possible to do so except on microscopic scales—a belief held by the late physicist Stephen Hawking. He proposed the chronology protection conjecture: The universe doesn’t allow time travel because it doesn’t allow alterations to the past. “It seems there is a chronology protection agency, which prevents the appearance of closed timelike curves and so makes the universe safe for historians,” Hawking wrote in a 1992 paper in Physical Review D .

Part of his reasoning involved the paradoxes time travel would create such as the aforementioned situation with a billiard ball and its more famous counterpart, the grandfather paradox : If you go back in time and kill your grandfather before he has children, you can’t be born, and therefore you can’t time travel, and therefore you couldn’t have killed your grandfather. And yet there you are.

Those complications are what interests Massachusetts Institute of Technology philosopher Agustin Rayo, however, because the paradoxes don’t just call causality and chronology into question. They also make free will seem suspect. If physics says you can go back in time, then why can’t you kill your grandfather? “What stops you?” he says. Are you not free?

Rayo suspects that time travel is consistent with free will, though. “What’s past is past,” he says. “So if, in fact, my grandfather survived long enough to have children, traveling back in time isn’t going to change that. Why will I fail if I try? I don’t know because I don’t have enough information about the past. What I do know is that I’ll fail somehow.”

If you went to kill your grandfather, in other words, you’d perhaps slip on a banana en route or miss the bus. “It's not like you would find some special force compelling you not to do it,” Costa says. “You would fail to do it for perfectly mundane reasons.”

In 2020 Costa worked with Germain Tobar, then his undergraduate student at the University of Queensland in Australia, on the math that would underlie a similar idea: that time travel is possible without paradoxes and with freedom of choice.

Goldberg agrees with them in a way. “I definitely fall into the category of [thinking that] if there is time travel, it will be constructed in such a way that it produces one self-consistent view of history,” he says. “Because that seems to be the way that all the rest of our physical laws are constructed.”

No one knows what the future of time travel to the past will hold. And so far, no time travelers have come to tell us about it.

Personal Finance

10 of the fastest ways to make money in 2024.

Our evaluations and opinions are not influenced by our advertising relationships, but we may earn a commission from our partners’ links. This content is created independently from TIME’s editorial staff. Learn more about it.

If your budget is a little tight or you have an unexpected expense, you might be interested in finding ways to make money fast. It's possible to make extra money quickly, without having to get a full time job. How quickly you're able to make money—and how much you can earn—can depend on which ideas you're willing to try and how much time you have to invest.

Get paid to take surveys with Swagbucks

How to make money fast in 2024: 10 proven strategies.

There are many ways to make money fast, including ways to make money online and ideas for earning passive income . When comparing different money-making options, it helps to consider what kind of skills might be required, the amount of time you'll need to put in, and the overall earning potential.

With that being said, here are some of the best ways to make money fast now.

1. Get paid for testing apps, games, and surveys

Completing simple tasks is another way to make money fast online.

With Freecash , for example, you can earn cash in minutes by testing apps and games or taking surveys online. You choose which offers you want to complete, with most taking 5 to 10 minutes. Once the task is completed you'll earn coins.

Get paid for testing apps, games & surveys

Every 1,000 coins you earn through Freecash is worth $100. You can earn additional coins by taking advantage of daily bonuses. You only need a $2.00 balance to cash out your earnings and cash out options include:

• Amazon gift cards.
• Retail gift cards for other top brands.
• Visa gift cards.
• PayPal deposits.
• In-game purchases for Fortnite, Roblox, Valorant, and more.

2. Get paid to deliver food or groceries

If you've got a reliable vehicle, you could make money delivering food or groceries locally.

Money making apps like DoorDash , UberEats, and GrubHub make it easy to accept delivery gigs from restaurants in your area. You can get paid an hourly rate plus tips for your time.

If you'd prefer to deliver groceries or other items from local stores you might check out Instacart, Shipt, or Postmates instead. These apps also allow you to earn an hourly rate while collecting tips for the deliveries you make.

One the other hand, you can save money from food delivery services with credit cards giving you cash back on food delivery and takeout , like the annual_fees annual fee card_name from Chase . These include:

• 4% cash back on DoorDash orders
• $5 monthly store credit
• One year free DashPass subscription

DoorDash Rewards Mastercard®

Why we like it:.

Particularly for no-annual-fee credit card , this is an above-average return for dining, whether you eat at the restaurant or order delivery. You'll get a free year of DashPass, special perks and cash back in DoorDash credits if you opt to pick up, in addition to a solid return for your spending.

Read our full review here .

The best thing about getting paid for deliveries is that you can pick and choose which gigs you want to accept. That can make it easier to make money fast on a schedule that works for you.

3. Get paid to take surveys

Taking surveys from your phone or tablet might not make you rich but it is an easy way to make money fast.

Companies are willing to pay good money for consumer research, which means you can get paid for answering questions and sharing your opinions. If you're looking for a survey site to try, you might check out Survey Junkie .

With Survey Junkie , you can earn rewards for completing surveys online and participating in focus groups. You can then redeem those rewards for cash or e-gift cards to top retail brands. It's a quick and simple way to make money in your spare time, with no special skills or degrees required.

4. Open a new bank account

Opening a new bank account might not seem like a way to make money, but it can be if you're earning a competitive yield on savings deposits or earning rewards on debit card purchases. High yield saving accounts are a great option if you're looking for a way to grow the money that you have with virtually zero effort. With bank account bonuses or rewards, you may need to meet certain requirements to qualify.

Other banks may reward you simply for using your debit card or completing other tasks.

Discover® Cashback Debit

Pro tip: Read the fine print on bank account rewards and bonus offers to make sure you understand how to qualify. Also, keep in mind that interest or bank bonuses are considered taxable income by the IRS.

5. Make money with investment apps

Investing can help you build wealth over the long-term and it's also possible to see relatively quick returns with day trading. Luckily, many investment apps exist to fit investors with their needs and expertise level.

Day trading involves buying investments at one price and selling them at a higher price. There are some tax implications, since any gains you realize from selling investments are taxable. But if you're market-savvy, you could potentially make money very quickly from trading through a platform like Robinhood . Robinhood is perfect for those looking to delve into stock trades, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and crypto trading - all on one platform. The Gold tier subscription offers a very competitive 5.00% APY on your uninvested brokerage cash (it’s 1.50% without Gold).

Robinhood Gold Trading

If you'd prefer to make money passively from investments , there are ways to do that as well. For instance, you could download the Acorns app and link it to your bank account. Acorns rounds up debit card transactions and invests the difference in a low-cost portfolio. You can effectively grow wealth just by investing your spare change.

Transactions: $0

Acorns Personal: $3/mo

Acorns Personal Plus: $5/mo

Acorns Premium: $9/mo

Expense ratio: 0.03%-0.25%

Bitcoin: 0.95%

Real estate is another way to invest for income passively and apps like Realty Mogul can help you do that from your phone. You can create an account, browse investment properties, and choose which ones to invest in based on your risk tolerance and goals. You will need to have at least $5,000, however, to get started with Realty Mogul .

RealtyMogul

If you'd like to invest for retirement, you might consider a robo-advisor instead. Platforms like SoFi Invest make it easy to set up an Individual Retirement Account , schedule recurring deposits, and build a portfolio on autopilot. You can choose between automated or self-directed trading to generate passive income from investments.

Sofi Invest

$0 stock & ETF trades.

0/contract options trades.

1.25% crypto fee.

6. Get cash back when you shop

Cash back apps pay you back a percentage of what you spend when you make purchases at partner retailers. You may also be able to unlock special promo codes or discounts, or earn extra cash through welcome bonuses and referrals.

Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is a popular cashback app that can pay up to 40% back when you shop at participating retailers in stores or online. You can download the Rakuten browser extension to activate cashback offers or browse deals through the mobile app. 

You can also earn an introductory welcome bonus from Rakuten when you sign up and make eligible purchases. And you can make even more money by referring friends and family to the app.

‌ Upside is another app that saves you money for everyday purchases. You can earn cash back when you shop for groceries, get gas, or buy food at partner merchants. All you need to do is download the Upside app, claim offers, and shop to earn rewards. You can redeem rewards for cash deposits to a bank account or PayPal account, or exchange them for gift cards.

7. Get paid to flip websites or domains

Website flipping is sort of like flipping real estate or anything else. You buy an asset at one price, make some improvements, then resell it for a profit.

The key is finding websites for sale that have the potential to be money-makers. You can browse listings on a site like Flippa , which features websites and blogs that are already generating an income or have the potential to do so.

Flippa 's experts help to manage transactions so you don't have to worry about figuring out all of the legal or financial stuff. And if you don't want to do the work of getting a website or blog ready for resale, you can also buy and sell domain names through Flippa to make money fast.

8. Sell things you don't need

One of the fastest ways to make money is to sell things around the house that you don't need. Some of the things you might be able to sell quickly for the most money include electronics, gaming consoles and video games, cellphones, and high-end clothing or accessories.

If you're wondering where to sell your stuff for quick cash, the options include:

• Facebook Marketplace.
• Local Facebook bargain groups.
• Craigslist.
• Apps like LetGo or Decluttr.
• Consignment shops.

You could also try selling items to a local pawn shop for cash. Pawn shops buy all sorts of things, including musical instruments, ATVs, and sports equipment. It's a simple way to get cash for your items the same day that you need it.

9. Do odd jobs

Doing odd jobs is another easy way to make money fast if you've got time to spare. Some of the odd jobs you could do for money include:

• Doing small repairs around the house.
• Raking leaves, cutting grass, or doing other types of yard work.
• Washing windows or helping someone clean out their garage or attic.
• Running errands.
• Babysitting or walking dogs.
• Helping someone move.
• Helping people put furniture together.
• Doing laundry for someone who needs help.
• Hauling off trash.

If you're looking for a side hustle to make money fast, you might spread the word on social media or NextDoor. You could also post an ad on Craigslist or create an account with TaskRabbit.

TaskRabbit is a gig app that lets you find odd jobs you can do for cash in your local area. Taskers can make money with same-day gigs doing things like moving, offering handyman services, or delivering things to people's homes.

10. Sell unused gift cards

Gift cards are great, unless you never use them. In that case, they're just wasted money.

A simple way to make money fast and unload some of those gift cards you don't need is to sell them. Sites like CardCash or EJ's Gift Cards let you post your unused or unwanted gift cards for sale.

If someone browses your listing and decides to buy your gift card, you get cash. Keep in mind that you might not get the full face value of your card. But this is another easy and relatively painless way to make money quickly.

11. Pet sit or babysit

Pet sitting or walking dogs can put money in your hands fast and it can be a fun pay to make some extra cash.

You might have neighbors, friends, or family members who need help taking care of pets while they're working or traveling. You could hire yourself out as a temporary pet-sitter or dog walker and get paid to play with animals.

Babysitting or caregiving for an adult who needs it may also be an option. You could watch children in your home (or theirs), or sit with an older person during the day while their family members are working or attending school.

TIME Stamp: Making money fast doesn't have to be difficult

When making money quickly is the goal, it helps to know what options you have. It's possible to make money in one day if you need it, though some money-making ideas might take a little to get started. Testing out different ways to make money online or offline can be a great way to find out what works best for you.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How can i earn $100 dollars a day.

If you'd like to earn $100 a day, you could do that by selling things you don't need, doing odd jobs for cash, or starting an online side hustle or business. For example, you might be able to make $100 a day as a freelance writer, blogger, YouTuber, or Etsy shop owner. Keep in mind, however, that online businesses and side hustles usually don't start making money right away, so you might need to give it some time to see a profit.

How can I make myself money?

You can make money for yourself by first figuring out which skills, experience, or knowledge you have that people might be willing to pay for. For example, if you're an expert at making home repairs, you could make money by doing odd jobs for homeowners who need help fixing things. Or if you know the ins and outs of using TikTok or YouTube, you might explore ways to monetize your following on those platforms.

How can I make money in one hour?

If you want to make money in one hour, you might be able to do that by taking surveys, watching videos, playing games, or shopping online with a cashback app. Sites like Swagbucks will pay you to answer questions and share opinions. You can also get paid to play games or watch videos with Swagbucks. Rakuten , meanwhile, lets you earn money back when you shop at partner stores.

How can I make an extra 200 a week?

If you need to make an extra $200 a week, you might do that by delivering food or groceries, taking care of pets or walking dogs, doing odd jobs, selling things you don't need, or investing. All of those things together could make $200 a week and some of them could make that much money or more by themselves.

The information presented here is created independently from the TIME editorial staff. To learn more, see our About page.

A beginner's guide to time travel

Learn exactly how Einstein's theory of relativity works, and discover how there's nothing in science that says time travel is impossible.

Everyone can travel in time . You do it whether you want to or not, at a steady rate of one second per second. You may think there's no similarity to traveling in one of the three spatial dimensions at, say, one foot per second. But according to Einstein 's theory of relativity , we live in a four-dimensional continuum — space-time — in which space and time are interchangeable.

Einstein found that the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time — you age more slowly, in other words. One of the key ideas in relativity is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — about 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second), or one light-year per year). But you can get very close to it. If a spaceship were to fly at 99% of the speed of light, you'd see it travel a light-year of distance in just over a year of time. 

That's obvious enough, but now comes the weird part. For astronauts onboard that spaceship, the journey would take a mere seven weeks. It's a consequence of relativity called time dilation , and in effect, it means the astronauts have jumped about 10 months into the future. 

Traveling at high speed isn't the only way to produce time dilation. Einstein showed that gravitational fields produce a similar effect — even the relatively weak field here on the surface of Earth . We don't notice it, because we spend all our lives here, but more than 12,400 miles (20,000 kilometers) higher up gravity is measurably weaker— and time passes more quickly, by about 45 microseconds per day. That's more significant than you might think, because it's the altitude at which GPS satellites orbit Earth, and their clocks need to be precisely synchronized with ground-based ones for the system to work properly. 

The satellites have to compensate for time dilation effects due both to their higher altitude and their faster speed. So whenever you use the GPS feature on your smartphone or your car's satnav, there's a tiny element of time travel involved. You and the satellites are traveling into the future at very slightly different rates.

But for more dramatic effects, we need to look at much stronger gravitational fields, such as those around black holes , which can distort space-time so much that it folds back on itself. The result is a so-called wormhole, a concept that's familiar from sci-fi movies, but actually originates in Einstein's theory of relativity. In effect, a wormhole is a shortcut from one point in space-time to another. You enter one black hole, and emerge from another one somewhere else. Unfortunately, it's not as practical a means of transport as Hollywood makes it look. That's because the black hole's gravity would tear you to pieces as you approached it, but it really is possible in theory. And because we're talking about space-time, not just space, the wormhole's exit could be at an earlier time than its entrance; that means you would end up in the past rather than the future.

Trajectories in space-time that loop back into the past are given the technical name "closed timelike curves." If you search through serious academic journals, you'll find plenty of references to them — far more than you'll find to "time travel." But in effect, that's exactly what closed timelike curves are all about — time travel

This article is brought to you by  How It Works .

How It Works is the action-packed magazine that's bursting with exciting information about the latest advances in science and technology, featuring everything you need to know about how the world around you — and the universe — works.

There's another way to produce a closed timelike curve that doesn't involve anything quite so exotic as a black hole or wormhole: You just need a simple rotating cylinder made of super-dense material. This so-called Tipler cylinder is the closest that real-world physics can get to an actual, genuine time machine. But it will likely never be built in the real world, so like a wormhole, it's more of an academic curiosity than a viable engineering design.

Yet as far-fetched as these things are in practical terms, there's no fundamental scientific reason — that we currently know of — that says they are impossible. That's a thought-provoking situation, because as the physicist Michio Kaku is fond of saying, "Everything not forbidden is compulsory" (borrowed from T.H. White's novel, "The Once And Future King"). He doesn't mean time travel has to happen everywhere all the time, but Kaku is suggesting that the universe is so vast it ought to happen somewhere at least occasionally. Maybe some super-advanced civilization in another galaxy knows how to build a working time machine, or perhaps closed timelike curves can even occur naturally under certain rare conditions.

This raises problems of a different kind — not in science or engineering, but in basic logic. If time travel is allowed by the laws of physics, then it's possible to envision a whole range of paradoxical scenarios . Some of these appear so illogical that it's difficult to imagine that they could ever occur. But if they can't, what's stopping them? 

Thoughts like these prompted Stephen Hawking , who was always skeptical about the idea of time travel into the past, to come up with his "chronology protection conjecture" — the notion that some as-yet-unknown law of physics prevents closed timelike curves from happening. But that conjecture is only an educated guess, and until it is supported by hard evidence, we can come to only one conclusion: Time travel is possible.

A party for time travelers 

Hawking was skeptical about the feasibility of time travel into the past, not because he had disproved it, but because he was bothered by the logical paradoxes it created. In his chronology protection conjecture, he surmised that physicists would eventually discover a flaw in the theory of closed timelike curves that made them impossible. 

In 2009, he came up with an amusing way to test this conjecture. Hawking held a champagne party (shown in his Discovery Channel program), but he only advertised it after it had happened. His reasoning was that, if time machines eventually become practical, someone in the future might read about the party and travel back to attend it. But no one did — Hawking sat through the whole evening on his own. This doesn't prove time travel is impossible, but it does suggest that it never becomes a commonplace occurrence here on Earth.

The arrow of time 

One of the distinctive things about time is that it has a direction — from past to future. A cup of hot coffee left at room temperature always cools down; it never heats up. Your cellphone loses battery charge when you use it; it never gains charge. These are examples of entropy , essentially a measure of the amount of "useless" as opposed to "useful" energy. The entropy of a closed system always increases, and it's the key factor determining the arrow of time.

It turns out that entropy is the only thing that makes a distinction between past and future. In other branches of physics, like relativity or quantum theory, time doesn't have a preferred direction. No one knows where time's arrow comes from. It may be that it only applies to large, complex systems, in which case subatomic particles may not experience the arrow of time.

Time travel paradox 

If it's possible to travel back into the past — even theoretically — it raises a number of brain-twisting paradoxes — such as the grandfather paradox — that even scientists and philosophers find extremely perplexing.

Killing Hitler

A time traveler might decide to go back and kill him in his infancy. If they succeeded, future history books wouldn't even mention Hitler — so what motivation would the time traveler have for going back in time and killing him?

Killing your grandfather

Instead of killing a young Hitler, you might, by accident, kill one of your own ancestors when they were very young. But then you would never be born, so you couldn't travel back in time to kill them, so you would be born after all, and so on … 

A closed loop

Suppose the plans for a time machine suddenly appear from thin air on your desk. You spend a few days building it, then use it to send the plans back to your earlier self. But where did those plans originate? Nowhere — they are just looping round and round in time.

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Andrew May holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Manchester University, U.K. For 30 years, he worked in the academic, government and private sectors, before becoming a science writer where he has written for Fortean Times, How It Works, All About Space, BBC Science Focus, among others. He has also written a selection of books including Cosmic Impact and Astrobiology: The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe, published by Icon Books.

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How to fast travel in Soulmask

In a game with a map as large as Soulmask’s , mastering the use of Personal and Mysterious Portals to fast travel is a must.

Soulmask is an open-world survival game, but a heads-up from CampFire Studio about the sheer scale would have been nice. You can spend hours traversing from one corner of the map to the other, even if you have a mount . Given how easy it is to lose your hardwood , logs , clay , and other belongings on the way, it’s better to play it safe and learn to fast travel. That said, you can’t just climb a tower and activate a fast travel point in Soulmask . Instead, you must either activate or craft your own Portals. In this guide, I’ll go over everything you must know about fast travel in Soulmask .

You can fast travel in Soulmask using either Personal Portals or Mysterious Portals.

Generally speaking, Personal Portals offer flexibility for short distances but come with inventory and mount limitations. On the other hand, Mysterious Portals are fantastic for long-distance travel without the hassle of inventory restrictions but require you to find and activate specific locations.

Below, you can find a breakdown of what each Portal option offers and how to unlock them in Soulmask :

Personal Portals in Soulmask

Personal Portals are player-placed teleporters that allow you to travel instantly between two points of your choosing in Soulmask . Unlike Mysterious Portals, you can set these up wherever you want, which makes them incredibly flexible for short to medium distances.

• You can place Personal Portals wherever you want, making them perfect for creating shortcuts between frequently visited locations.
• Once set up, using them is as simple as pressing a button.
• You can’t have any items in your inventory when teleporting. Items in your hot bar or equipped gear are fine, but everything else must be empty.
• You can’t teleport with deployed mounts. They need to be stored before you can use the Portal.
• Portal parts are heavy, so make sure you have a mount to carry them out of the dungeon.

How to unlock Personal Portals

You can get Personal Portals in Soulmask by collecting parts from specific dungeons like the Ancient Ruins and Holy Ruins.

Each Portal requires three parts to assemble , often guarded by tough enemies or hidden behind puzzles within the dungeon.

Make sure you’re prepared to fight or solve your way to each part. Most dungeons are designed to be run in bronze gear. That said, you should be fine if you tackle them with one or two other players.

Consider running it multiple times to collect iron chunks and upgrade to iron weapons at awareness level 35. The final boss can be quite challenging without them. don’t forget to bring high-level buff foods such as fried tacos, smoked ham, meat, and fried pumpkin rings.

When you have three or six parts, take them back to your campfire and assemble a Personal Portal.

Mysterious Portals in Soulmask

Mysterious Portals are pre-set teleportation points scattered across various biomes of Soulmask . These Portals are usually found in key locations, such as near major bosses or landmarks, and are great for long-distance travel. There are a total of six Mysterious Portals spread all over the map.

• You can carry items and ride mounts through Mysterious Portals, making them ideal for transporting goods and companions.
• They’re perfect for traversing the massive map, especially to and from remote or hard-to-reach areas.
• Unlike Personal Portals, you can’t choose where to place Mysterious Portals. You have to work with the locations provided.
• You need to collect and use green crystals to activate each Portal, which can be a bit of a grind.

How to unlock Mysterious Portals

You need three green crystals to activate a Mysterious Portal in the world of Soulmask .

These crystals are typically found throughout the game world, but if you’re looking to farm them quickly, just look for them inside chests in the Ancient Ruins, Barbarian Fortress, Ancient Ruins Dungeon, Large Ancient Ruins, and Holy Ruins . Alternatively, they always drop from Temple Guardians.

Once you have the crystals, activate the Portal, and it becomes part of your fast travel network. You must activate both the departure and destination Portals to travel between them.

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Screen Rant

Dom's returning car in fast x supports wild time travel theory.

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The Most Realistic D-Day Movie Came Out 23 Years Before Saving Private Ryan

10 characters who must return in cillian murphy's peaky blinders movie, jason statham's 23-year-old action movie debut proves the biggest unfulfilled potential of his career.

Fast X is bringing back Dominic Toretto's 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, one of the various models that Dom drives in the franchise, which supports a wild theory that it will time jump back to the earlier movies. The Fast and Furious franchise has a penchant for assuming that its audience will suspend disbelief without asking for much explanation when employing plot points that are illogical or nearly impossible. The franchise has brought back characters from the dead (like Han's return in Fast & Furious 9 ), parachuted cars into forests, driven cars through the air between two high-rise buildings, sent cars into space (with a hasty plan hatched by amateur rocket scientists), and the F9 movie self-reflexively pokes fun of the fact that the heroes of the story should not have survived all the ridiculous situations they went through.

Thanks to the franchise's increasing awareness of its own reputation, theories floated on the internet have gotten more audacious over time. Time travel has been mooted before, and now, bringing back a car that appeared in both The Fast and the Furious and Fast & Furious could further support that notion. At the very least, it suggests that Fast X is going to revisit and reframe some past events. Considering one of the running jokes prior to F9 was that the Fast and Furious franchise would go to space at some point, it opens the door for time travel to be a realistically plausible option.

Related: Jason Momoa's Fast X Character Sounds Like A Bond Villain (& That's Good)

Would Time Travel Really Work In Fast X?

F9 's self-awareness was the writers' way of nodding to the fans for accepting the neo-fantasy premise of these movies. With that in mind, time travel would not be a far-off realm to venture into in the upcoming movie. However, the use of the conventional time-travel plot device is highly unlikely in Fast X , as the franchise's field of know-how is in mechanical engineering and not theoretical physics. More likely, the film will include flashbacks to the Toretto family 's early years to flesh out their backstory.

Dom's Returning Car Shows How Fast X Can Bring The Saga Full Circle

The Fast and Furious universe continually expands as newer characters are brought into the series and into the fold of the Toretto family. Family, Dom's favorite motto, is the central theme of the series, whether born into or chosen. With stars such as Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, and Charlize Theron joining the cast of the Fast movies, the series has explored independent backstories of the supporting characters, especially in the spinoff film Hobbs and Shaw . However, with the introduction of John Cena's role of Jakob Toretto in F9, the series now has the opportunity to refocus its lens on the Toretto family and fill in some gaps in their lore.

Considering that Dom's extended family has never been mentioned in the previous films, Rita Moreno playing Dom's grandmother in Fast X could mean flashbacks to Dom, Mia, and Jakob's childhood . Hopefully, the film will show young Dom working on his Dodge Charger R/T with his father, as teased in the very first The Fast and The Furious movie. As for the 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, Dom raced Brian O'Conner—for whom Dom's son is named—in Fast & Furious with that model, and eventually blew it up as a distraction to avenge Letty's death. With the Chevelle SS returning to Fast X , perhaps the car will appear in another epic race where Dom comes out on top. Better yet, now that Dom is a father himself, he'll hopefully restore the 1970s model with his son, and in doing so pass the baton on and keep Paul Walker's legacy alive through his character's namesake.

Next: Every Fast & Furious Character Confirmed To Return In Fast X

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• Best for No-Annual-Fee

Best for Independent Hotel Purchases

• Best for Beginners
• Best for Everyday Spending
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Best Travel Credit Cards of June 2024

Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us and terms apply to offers listed (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate credit cards to write unbiased product reviews .

The information for the following product(s) has been collected independently by Business Insider: Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card, Citi Strata Premier℠ Card, Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students. The details for these products have not been reviewed or provided by the issuer.

• Best overall travel credit card : Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Best travel credit card for beginners : Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
• Best no-annual-fee travel credit card : Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card ( rates and fees )
• Best for spending at hotels : Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card
• Best for travel rewards on everyday spending : Citi Strata Premier℠ Card
• Best travel card for students : Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students
• Most affordable premium travel credit card : Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
• Best travel credit card for earning travel credit on dining and groceries : American Express® Gold Card
• Best premium card for travel bonus categories : Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Best for luxury travel benefits and airport lounge access : The Platinum Card® from American Express

Introduction to Travel Credit Cards

Whether you're just dipping your toe into the world of rewards credit cards or you've already flown thousands of miles on points alone, we can tell you: There's a travel credit card for everyone. There's a card if you're looking for free flights, if you're hoping for free hotel stays, or if you're just doing whatever it takes to realize your dream of an overwater bungalow. There are even no-annual-fee travel credit cards that won't cost you anything to keep.

Compare the Top Travel Credit Cards

Earn 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠. Earn 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries. Earn 2x on all other travel purchases. Earn 1x on all other purchases.

21.49% - 28.49% Variable

Earn 75,000 bonus points

Good to Excellent

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. High intro bonus offer starts you off with lots of points
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Strong travel coverage
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Doesn't offer a Global Entry/TSA PreCheck application fee credit

If you're new to travel rewards credit cards or just don't want to pay hundreds in annual fees, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is a smart choice. It earns bonus points on a wide variety of travel and dining purchases and offers strong travel and purchase coverage, including primary car rental insurance.

• Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's over $900 when you redeem through Chase Travel℠.
• Enjoy benefits such as 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries, 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases, $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit, plus more.
• Get 25% more value when you redeem for airfare, hotels, car rentals and cruises through Chase Travel℠. For example, 75,000 points are worth $937.50 toward travel.
• Count on Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Lost Luggage Insurance and more.
• Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024.
• Member FDIC

Earn 5 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. Earn unlimited 1.25X miles on every purchase.

0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months (intro fee of 3% for the first 15 months, then 4% of the amount of each balance transfer at a promotional APR that Capital One may offer you at any other time)

19.99% - 29.99% Variable

Earn 20,000 miles

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. No annual fee or foreign transaction fees
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Versatile rewards
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Earn 1.25 miles per dollar on all purchases with no bonus categories to track
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Lower earning rate than some other no-annual-fee rewards cards
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Limited benefits

The VentureOne Rewards Card is a slimmed-down version of the popular Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. It's one of the few no-annual-fee cards on the market that gives you the option to redeem miles for cash back or transfer them to travel partners.

• $0 annual fee and no foreign transaction fees
• Earn a bonus of 20,000 miles once you spend $500 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $200 in travel
• Earn unlimited 1.25X miles on every purchase, every day
• Miles won't expire for the life of the account and there's no limit to how many you can earn
• Earn 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, where you'll get Capital One's best prices on thousands of trip options
• Use your miles to get reimbursed for any travel purchase-or redeem by booking a trip through Capital One Travel
• Transfer your miles to your choice of 15+ travel loyalty programs
• Enjoy 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months; 19.99% - 29.99% variable APR after that; balance transfer fee applies

Earn unlimited 5x points per dollar on hotels. Earn 4x points on airlines. Earn 3x points on other travel and dining. Earn 1x on other purchases.

21.24%, 26.24%, or 29.99% Variable

Earn 60,000 bonus rewards points

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Trip cancellation and lost baggage protection
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Airline and hotel transfer partners available
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Welcome bonus
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Generous cellphone protection
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Low annual fee
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Transfer partner network not as diverse or robust as competitors

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card is a true travel credit card, with benefits that rival many of the best travel rewards credit cards currently on the market. This card has a low annual fee on par with that of popular competing credit cards and Wells Fargo's newly announced Points Transfer program allows cardholders to juice maximum value from every point they earn.

Earn 5x miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. Earn unlimited 2x miles on every purchase.

19.99% - 29.99% variable

Earn 75,000 miles

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. No bonus categories to keep track of
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Includes up to a $100 statement credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Other credit cards offer higher rewards in certain categories of spending

If you want an easy, no-fuss travel rewards credit card, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is a great fit. For a moderate annual fee, it offers plenty of value, useful benefits, and a substantial welcome bonus.

• Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel
• Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day
• Receive up to a $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck®
• Enrich every hotel stay from the Lifestyle Collection with a suite of cardholder benefits, like a $50 experience credit, room upgrades, and more

Earn a total of 10 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent on hotel, car rentals and attractions booked through CitiTravel.com. Earn 3X points per $1 on air travel and other hotel purchases, at restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations and EV charging stations. Earn 1X point per $1 on all other purchases.

21.24% - 29.24% variable

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Earn 3x points on most travel, restaurants, gas/EV charging, and supermarkets
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Earn 10x points on hotels, rental cars, and attractions booked via Citi Travel
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. $100 annual hotel credit on a single stay of $500 or more
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. No foreign transaction fees
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Trip delay/interruption benefits and lost/damaged baggage coverage
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Has an annual fee
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Citi Travel rates often are higher than retail cost of travel

Earn unlimited 1.5 points per dollar on purchases.

• 0% intro APR for your first 18 billing cycles for purchases, and for any balance transfers made within the first 60 days of opening your account

17.99% - 27.99% Variable

25,000 online bonus points

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Generous welcome bonus for a student credit card
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Earns flexible points you can use toward a wide variety of travel purchases
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Other travel rewards cards have higher earning rates
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Few travel-related benefits compared to other travel cards

A good student credit card should offer rewards and useful benefits to those with limited credit history and the Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students hits several of those notes. However, while the card is marketed to students, those without established credit may have difficulty getting approved.

• The information related to the Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students has been collected by Business Insider and has not been reviewed by the issuer.
• 25,000 online bonus points after spending $1,000 in purchases in the first 90 days from account opening (redeemed as a $250 statement credit toward travel and dining purchases)
• Unlimited 1.5 points for every $1 spent on all purchases everywhere, no expiration on points
• No annual fee or foreign transaction fees

Earn unlimited 10 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. Earn 5 miles per dollar on flights booked through Capital One Travel. Earn unlimited 2 miles on all other purchases.

Earn 75,000 bonus miles

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Excellent welcome bonus and miles earning
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Premium perks including airport lounge access and credits for certain purchases
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Visa Infinite benefits including travel and shopping protections
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. High annual fee
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Annual travel credits only apply to Capital One Travel purchases

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is one of the best credit cards for frequent travelers, with top-notch benefits and a wide range of built-in protections. It comes with a generous welcome bonus and credits that can help offset the annual fee — which is much lower than similar premium cards.

• Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel
• Receive a $300 annual credit for bookings through Capital One Travel, where you'll get Capital One's best prices on thousands of trip options
• Get 10,000 bonus miles (equal to $100 towards travel) every year, starting on your first anniversary
• Earn unlimited 10X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel and 5X miles on flights booked through Capital One Travel
• Earn unlimited 2X miles on all other purchases
• Unlimited complimentary access for you and two guests to 1,300+ lounges, including Capital One Lounges and the Partner Lounge Network
• Use your Venture X miles to easily cover travel expenses, including flights, hotels, rental cars and more—you can even transfer your miles to your choice of 15+ travel loyalty programs
• Elevate every hotel stay from the Premier or Lifestyle Collections with a suite of cardholder benefits, like an experience credit, room upgrades, and more

Earn 4X Membership Rewards® points at Restaurants, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S. Earn 4X Membership Rewards® points at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases, then 1X). Earn 3X Membership Rewards® points on flights booked directly with airlines or on amextravel.com. Earn 1X Membership Rewards® points on all other purchases.

See Pay Over Time APR

Earn 60,000 Membership Rewards® points

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Great rewards for dining and for shopping at US supermarkets
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Monthly statement credit for eligible dining purchases recoups some of the annual fee
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Underwhelming welcome bonus

Foodies and travelers alike will appreciate the American Express Gold's generous welcome bonus and Membership Rewards points earning. Its Uber Cash credits are useful for rides and Uber Eats, and monthly dining credits with participating merchants like GrubHub and Seamless are easy to use.

• Earn 60,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases with your new Card within the first 6 months of Card Membership.
• Earn 4X Membership Rewards® Points at Restaurants, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S., and earn 4X Membership Rewards® points at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases, then 1X).
• Earn 3X Membership Rewards® points on flights booked directly with airlines or on amextravel.com.
• $120 Uber Cash on Gold: Add your Gold Card to your Uber account and each month automatically get $10 in Uber Cash for Uber Eats orders or Uber rides in the U.S., totaling up to $120 per year.
• $120 Dining Credit: Satisfy your cravings and earn up to $10 in statement credits monthly when you pay with the American Express® Gold Card at Grubhub, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, Milk Bar and select Shake Shack locations. Enrollment required.
• Get a $100 experience credit with a minimum two-night stay when you book The Hotel Collection through American Express Travel. Experience credit varies by property.
• Choose the color that suits your style. Gold or Rose Gold.
• No Foreign Transaction Fees.
• Annual Fee is $250.
• Terms Apply.

Earn 5x points on flights and 10x total points on hotels and car rentals when you purchase travel through Chase Travel℠ immediately after the first $300 is spent on travel purchases annually. Earn 3x points on other travel and dining & 1x point per $1 spent on all other purchases.

22.49% - 29.49% Variable

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Annual travel credit can effectively shave $300 off the annual fee if you use it
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Strong travel insurance
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Strong bonus rewards on travel and dining
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Very high annual fee

If you're new to rewards credit cards you may want to start elsewhere, but if you know you want to earn Chase points and you spend a lot on travel and dining, the Sapphire Reserve is one of the most rewarding options.

• Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $1,125 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Travel℠.
• $300 Annual Travel Credit as reimbursement for travel purchases charged to your card each account anniversary year.
• Earn 5x total points on flights and 10x total points on hotels and car rentals when you purchase travel through Chase Travel℠ immediately after the first $300 is spent on travel purchases annually. Earn 3x points on other travel and dining & 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases
• Get 50% more value when you redeem your points for travel through Chase Travel℠. For example, 75,000 points are worth $1125 toward travel.
• 1:1 point transfer to leading airline and hotel loyalty programs
• Access to 1,300+ airport lounges worldwide after an easy, one-time enrollment in Priority Pass™ Select and up to $100 application fee credit every four years for Global Entry, NEXUS, or TSA PreCheck®

Earn 5X Membership Rewards® Points for flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel (on up to $500,000 per calendar year) and on prepaid hotels booked with American Express Travel. Earn 1X Points on other purchases.

Earn 80,000 Membership Rewards® points

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Long list of travel benefits, including airport lounge access and complimentary elite status with Hilton and Marriott (enrollment required)
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Annual statement credits with Saks and Uber
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Bonus categories leave something to be desired
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. One of the highest annual fees among premium travel cards

If you want as many premium travel perks as possible, The Platinum Card® from American Express could be the right card for you. The annual fee is high, but you get a long list of benefits such as airport lounge access, travel statement credits, complimentary hotel elite status, and more.

• Earn 80,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $8,000 on eligible purchases on your new Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership. Apply and select your preferred metal Card design: classic Platinum, Platinum x Kehinde Wiley, or Platinum x Julie Mehretu.
• Earn 5X Membership Rewards® Points for flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel up to $500,000 on these purchases per calendar year and earn 5X Membership Rewards® Points on prepaid hotels booked with American Express Travel.
• $200 Hotel Credit: Get up to $200 back in statement credits each year on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts® or The Hotel Collection bookings with American Express Travel when you pay with your Platinum Card®. The Hotel Collection requires a minimum two-night stay.
• $240 Digital Entertainment Credit: Get up to $20 back in statement credits each month on eligible purchases made with your Platinum Card® on one or more of the following: Disney+, a Disney Bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, The New York Times, Peacock, and The Wall Street Journal. Enrollment required.
• The American Express Global Lounge Collection® can provide an escape at the airport. With complimentary access to more than 1,400 airport lounges across 140 countries and counting, you have more airport lounge options than any other credit card issuer on the market. As of 03/2023.
• $155 Walmart+ Credit: Save on eligible delivery fees, shipping, and more with a Walmart+ membership. Use your Platinum Card® to pay for a monthly Walmart+ membership and get up to $12.95 plus applicable taxes back on one membership (excluding Plus Ups) each month.
• $200 Airline Fee Credit: Select one qualifying airline and then receive up to $200 in statement credits per calendar year when incidental fees are charged by the airline to your Platinum Card®.
• $200 Uber Cash: Enjoy Uber VIP status and up to $200 in Uber savings on rides or eats orders in the US annually. Uber Cash and Uber VIP status is available to Basic Card Member only. Terms Apply.
• $189 CLEAR® Plus Credit: CLEAR® Plus helps to get you to your gate faster at 50+ airports nationwide and get up to $189 back per calendar year on your Membership (subject to auto-renewal) when you use your Card. CLEARLanes are available at 100+ airports, stadiums, and entertainment venues.
• Receive either a $100 statement credit every 4 years for a Global Entry application fee or a statement credit up to $85 every 4.5 year period for TSA PreCheck® application fee for a 5-year plan only (through a TSA PreCheck® official enrollment provider), when charged to your Platinum Card®. Card Members approved for Global Entry will also receive access to TSA PreCheck at no additional cost.
• Shop Saks with Platinum: Get up to $100 in statement credits annually for purchases in Saks Fifth Avenue stores or at saks.com on your Platinum Card®. That's up to $50 in statement credits semi-annually. Enrollment required.
• Unlock access to exclusive reservations and special dining experiences with Global Dining Access by Resy when you add your Platinum Card® to your Resy profile.
• $695 annual fee.

Best Travel Credit Card Recommendations

The best travel rewards credit cards offer valuable rewards, easy-to-use benefits, and helpful features like travel coverage. Our team of credit card experts at Business Insider chose the best options available on the market in 2024, and reviewed each one below.

Best Travel Credit Card Overall

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is our top pick for a well-rounded travel rewards credit card. Even infrequent travelers can benefit from the slew of premium perks on this card, typically found on cards with far higher annual fees. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card stands out for its travel protection benefits. When you pay for travel expenses with this card and meet certain requirements, you can request reimbursement for unexpected expenses that may arise when your flight is delayed or if your baggage is delayed or lost.

You'll also have primary rental car insurance, meaning you won't have to file claims through your personal car insurance plan or pay for coverage from the rental car company. This card also offers a 10% anniversary points bonus, and up to $50 in annual statement credits for hotel purchases made through the Chase Travel℠ Portal. 

The rewards rate on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card isn't shabby either. You'll earn 5 points on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards; 2 points on all other travel purchases; and 3 points on dining, online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), and select streaming services. You'll earn 1 point per dollar on everything else.

Chase Ultimate Rewards® points are some of the easiest points to use in various ways. You can redeem them for travel directly through the Chase Travel Portal for a 25% boost in value, where 1 point will be worth 1.25 cents apiece. You can also transfer your points to Chase's airline and hotel transfer partners , which include United Airlines, Hyatt, Marriott, and many other airlines and hotel chains around the world. Cardholders can also use points for statement credits, gift cards, merchandise, and more.  

What the experts love: High welcome bonus offer, earns bonus points on travel, dining, and online grocery purchases, you can redeem points for 1.25 cents apiece for travel or through Chase for 25% value bonus

What the experts don't love: Doesn't offer some of the travel perks you'll get with competing cards, such as airport lounge access and a statement credit for Global Entry

Read more: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card card review

Best No-Annual-Fee Card for Earning Travel Miles

The Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card is our top choice for a no-annual-fee travel card ( rates and fees ), and it's got many of the same perks as its bigger sibling, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card.

New cardholders can earn a respectable 20,000 miles after spending $500 on purchases within three months from account opening (worth at least $340 in travel according to Business Insider's valuations). While the card only earns 1.25 miles per dollar on most purchases (plus 5x on hotels and car rentals booked through Capital One Travel), it's still a compelling choice if an annual fee isn't for you ( rates and fees ).

You'll get the same access to Capital One's airline and hotel partners as you would with annual-fee cards, and a handful of benefits including car rental insurance***, travel accident insurance***, and purchase assurance***. This is also a solid pick if you're looking for a zero-interest credit card  with a 0% introductory APR offer, because new cardholders receive a 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months (intro fee of 3% for the first 15 months, then 4% of the amount of each balance transfer at a promotional APR that Capital One may offer you at any other time), then a 19.99% - 29.99% Variable APR ( rates and fees ).

What the experts love: No annual fee, access to transfer partners, generous intro 0% APR offer

What the experts don't love: Few travel benefits, lower earning rate

Read more: Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card review

The newly announced Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card earns one of the highest rates of return on hotel bookings for a credit card that isn't co-branded with a specific hotel chain. 

This card has a $95 annual fee, inviting direct comparisons to two other cards on this list: The Sapphire Preferred Card , and the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card . In exchange, cardholders earn at least 3x on dining and travel purchases. Airline purchases earn 4x, and hotel purchases earn 5x.

Wells Fargo simultaneously announced brand-new airline and hotel partners: Choice Privileges, Aer Lingus AerClub, Air France-KLM Flying Blue, avianca lifemiles, and British Airways Executive Club. Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card cardholders can redeem rewards at the standard redemption rate of 1 cent per point for cash back, or transfer their rewards to any of the travel partners above for additional value.

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card will be available for in-person applications at select Wells Fargo bank locations on March 9, 2024. Nationwide applications open online and in person on March 20, 2024. 

Read more: Wells Fargo Autograph Journey credit card review

Best Travel Credit Card for Beginners

The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is a great "set it and forget it" card, in the sense that you don't have to worry about various bonus categories for earning rewards. You'll earn 5 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel and 2x miles on all other purchases.

The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card also offers one of the most straightforward ways to redeem rewards for travel: you're able to use your miles to cover recent travel purchases from your card statement, at a rate of 1 cent per mile. 

You also have the option to transfer Capital One miles *** to more than a dozen frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programs, including Air Canada Aeroplan, Etihad Guest, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer. Capital One also added new partners including British Airways and Turkish Airlines, and improved the transfer ratio to 1:1 for most partners. 

The selection of transfer partners is best suited to someone who wants to travel internationally and who doesn't mind spending some time researching the best ways to redeem miles with the different frequent flyer program options. But the upside is that you can always use your miles to cover your travel purchases. You also get up to a $100 Global Entry/TSA PreCheck application fee credit.

What the experts love:  The ability to use your miles to cover your recent travel expenses; it earns at least 2 miles per dollar on every purchase.

What the experts don't love: Other cards offer higher rewards on certain spending categories such as travel and dining.

Read more: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card review

Best Travel Rewards on Everyday Spending

The Citi Strata Premier℠ Card isn't as flashy or well-known as some other travel cards, but that doesn't mean you should overlook it, especially if you spend a lot on its bonus categories. Cardholders earn an impressive 3x points on air travel, gas stations, restaurants, supermarkets, and hotels, and 1 point per dollar on everything else.

Along with a solid welcome bonus offer of 75,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first three months of account opening (worth $1,200 based on Business Insider's valuations), you'll receive $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees) booked through thankyou.com once per calendar year.

While it isn't the best for travel protections, the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card is the only card currently available to new applicants that unlocks the ability to transfer your ThankYou points to Citi's full list of airline and hotel partners , including JetBlue, Singapore Airlines, and Wyndham.

What the experts love:  Strong rewards earning in useful everyday categories, access to Citi's transfer partners

What the experts don't love: Lack of travel protections like car rental insurance, few travel perks compared to similar rewards cards

Read more: Citi Strata Premier℠ Card review

Best Travel Card for Students

The Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students is a fairly unique offering, as there aren't many student credit cards specifically geared toward travel. New cardholders can earn 25,000 online bonus points after spending $1,000 in purchases in the first 90 days from account opening (redeemed as a $250 statement credit toward travel and dining purchases). That's a decent offer for a no-annual-fee card, and the earning structure is simple, too — 1.5x points per dollar on every purchase, with no bonus categories to keep track of.

There's also a 0% intro APR for your first 18 billing cycles for purchases, and for any balance transfers made within the first 60 days of opening your account (then a 17.99% - 27.99% Variable APR) which can be handy if you have big purchases (like textbooks or supplies) you want to pay for over time. 

The Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students is a good choice if you prefer a straightforward card without having to worry about award charts or transfer partners. It's also a safe bet if you want to use it while traveling internationally — it doesn't charge pesky foreign transaction fees, so you won't be on the hook for extra charges if you use it overseas.

However, you won't find many extras — like travel benefits or purchase protections — with this card. If you're looking for better benefits, be sure to check out our guide to the best student credit cards for all the top options.

What the experts love: Impressive welcome bonus offer for a student credit card, good flat-rate rewards earning

What the experts don't love: No flashy extra perks or shopping benefits

Read more: Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students review

Most Affordable Premium Travel Credit Card

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card was unveiled in late 2021 and offers a massive welcome bonus of 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening — worth at least $1,275 in travel, based on Business Insider's valuation of Capital One miles .

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is loaded with premium benefits that can more than offset the $395 annual fee ( rates and fees ). For context, the Venture X's annual fee, while high, is significantly lower than other premium travel card competitors.

Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card cardholders receive $300 per year in credits toward travel booked through Capital One, Priority Pass, Plaza Premium, and Capital One airport lounge access (even for authorized users), a 10,000-mile bonus on each account anniversary (worth $100 in travel), and Visa Infinite travel and purchase benefits.

As with other cards that earn Capital One miles , you can transfer rewards to over a dozen airline and hotel partners to book award travel, or use miles to book through the Capital One Travel Portal .

What the experts love:  Between $300 a year in travel credit and a 10,000-mile bonus on each account anniversary, you can offset the annual fee entirely — and that's not even considering other benefits like lounge access.

What the experts don't love:  The $300 travel credit is more restrictive than other cards' — it only applies to travel booked through Capital One.

Read more: Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card review

Best for Earning Travel Credit from Dining and Groceries

The American Express® Gold Card is an ideal travel card for anyone who frequently eats out and/or shops at U.S. supermarkets. You'll earn 4x Amex Membership Rewards points on these purchases (though note the $25,000 calendar year annual cap for U.S. supermarkets; after that, you'll earn just 1 point per dollar, but that's a pretty high cap). The card also earns 3x points on flights booked directly with the airlines or through AmexTravel.com, and 1 point per dollar on everything else.

While the $250 annual fee is on the high side, you can offset it thanks to an annual statement credit. You can get up to $120 in annual dining credits**, but it's divided into up to $10 in credits each month, and the credit only applies at select restaurants and delivery services, including Grubhub, Seamless, Milk Bar, Wine.com, and Goldbelly, and participating Shake Shack locations.

You'll also get up to $120 Uber Cash ($10 per month) credit each calendar year (this is only applicable to U.S. Eats orders and rides, and the Gold Card needs to be added to the Uber app to receive the Uber Cash benefit).

What the experts love: "4x points on restaurants and at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 per year, then 1x) is great — usually, a card favors one or the other," says Rathner. Plus, the card offers monthly dining credits.

What the experts don't love: Wilson notes that other cards offer similar benefits for a lower annual fee, and Rathner notes that the card's travel and dining credits come with some important limitations — so read the fine print. 

Read more: American Express® Gold Card review

Best Premium Card for Travel Insurance and Bonus Categories

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® has a $550 annual fee, which means it's not for everybody, but if you're serious about maximizing your rewards and you travel frequently, it could be worth it. It offers a bonus of 75,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening. 

Not only do you get up to $300 in statement credits toward travel each year (and Chase has a very generous definition of travel — including everything from airfare to highway tolls), but you also earn 5x total points on air travel and 10x total points on hotels and car rentals purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards (excluding the $300 travel credit) and 3x points on all other travel and dining. You also get airport lounge access through the Priority Pass network , which has more than 1,300 locations worldwide.

New benefits also include access to Chase Sapphire lounges in JFK , LaGuardia , Boston , and Hong Kong, as well as the Chase Sapphire Terrace at Austin Airport . You'll also receive benefits with DoorDash  and Instacart that can save you money on delivery (activation required).

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® is currently offering cardholders two years of complimentary Lyft Pink All Access membership (valued at $199 per year) for member-exclusive pricing, priority pickup, and more (activation required). 

When it comes to redeeming points, you can book travel through Chase and get 1.5 cents per point (a 50% bonus over the standard 1-cent-per-point rate), or you can transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards to travel partners like Hyatt, British Airways, and United.

Plus, like the less-expensive Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® offers some of the best credit card travel insurance around. This includes primary car rental insurance, trip delay insurance, trip cancellation protection, and lost baggage insurance.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® card was previously our pick for the best travel card overall, before the annual fee increased from $450 to $550. While the Reserve did add some additional benefits, the Reserve no longer makes as much sense for casual travelers. As a result, we now recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card as the best travel credit card for most people. 

What the experts love:  Earns 3x points on travel and dining purchases made outside of Chase Travel Portal, annual $300 travel credit, points are worth 1.5 cents apiece for travel booked through Chase

What the experts don't love: You have to squeeze every drop of value out of this card to make that jaw-dropping $550 annual fee worth your while.

Read more: Chase Sapphire Reserve® review

Best for Luxury Travel Benefits and Airport Lounge Access

The Platinum Card® from American Express has one of the highest rewards card annual fees —  $695 — but it can still be well worth it if you can put all of its statement credits and generous welcome bonus offer to use.

You'll earn 5x points on flights when you book directly through the airline or through American Express Travel (on up to $500,000 per calendar year), which makes the card a great choice for purchasing airfare. The card offers trip cancellation and interruption insurance, plus some of the best purchase protection, so it's a good option for buying expensive items (and don't forget to see if you can take advantage of an Amex Offer ** for bonus points or cash back).

The Platinum Card® from American Express offers more airport lounge access than any other personal travel card — in addition to Priority Pass membership**, you get access to Amex Centurion Lounges , Delta Sky Clubs (when you're flying Delta), and more. 

The card's annual statement credits can go a long way toward offsetting the high annual fee. You get up to $200 in statement credits toward airline incidental fees** like checked bags and inflight purchases; up to $100 each year in credit toward Saks Fifth Avenue purchases**; and up to $200 in annual Uber credits (including Uber Eats)**. 

Just keep in mind that you're limited to one designated airline you choose each year in your Amex account for the airline incidental fee credit, and both the Saks and Uber credits are divided into portions. You'll get up to $50 in statement credits toward Saks purchases from January to June, and another credit of up to $50 for Saks purchases from July to December.

With the Uber credit, you get up to $15 each month, and a $20 bonus in December for a total of $35 that month.

What the experts love:  Lots of luxury benefits, including airport lounge access and statement credits with Uber and Saks

What the experts don't love: This card's $695 annual fee, and minimal bonus categories

Read more: The Platinum Card® from American Express review

How to Choose the Best Travel Credit Card

While it takes more effort to redeem points or miles compared to cash back, the upside is that you can get much more value for your points compared to simply cashing in your rewards for a statement credit or check at a rate of 1 cent per point.

In fact, it's possible to receive double, triple, or even more than that amount when you're strategic about how you redeem your rewards, particularly if you book expensive luxury hotels or first-class flights. 

In this guide, we've focused mostly on the best travel credit cards that earn transferable points. Transferable points include popular currencies such as:

• Amex Membership Rewards
• Chase Ultimate Rewards
• Citi ThankYou Rewards
• Capital One miles

You can transfer these points to both airline and hotel partner loyalty programs. You can even redeem your points to offset the cash price of your travel at a flat rate.

Travel Credit Card Frequently Asked Questions

If you want a single credit card that does it all and don't mind paying a generous annual fee, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® is a great choice. It comes with the best travel insurance available on the market, as well as a $300 travel credit each year that can be used on most types of travel.

The best travel credit card overall is the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, but the best card for your particular situation will depend on what benefits you care about the most, as well as how you feel about paying a high annual fee. 

We'd recommend opening a travel card that earns Amex or Chase points, because these are among the easiest rewards to redeem and you have various travel partners to utilize. But if you've investigated your options and are confident that you can get value out of their rewards, credit cards that earn Capital One miles or Citi ThankYou points can make sense as well.

There are two main types of travel credit cards: Cards that earn transferable points, and airline/hotel co-branded credit cards. Transferable points currencies include Amex Membership Rewards points, Capital One miles, and Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Airline credit cards and hotel credit cards earn points or miles within a respective hotel or airline program; you don't have the option to redeem your rewards with a wide variety of travel partners (or if you do, the transfer ratio usually isn't great).

To pick the right travel credit card for you, you'll want to evaluate its welcome bonus offer, ease of use, benefits, and annual fee. The best one for you will ideally have a combination of an attractive sign-up bonus , lots of options for earning and redeeming rewards, benefits that save you money, and a low or no annual fee.

Travel credit cards with annual fees are worth it if you're able to get significant value out of their benefits and rewards. Before you apply for a card , make sure you'll actually use all the features that contribute to the card's annual fee. For example, if a card offers an annual statement credit of up to $200 toward travel but you can't use it, you're probably not getting what you pay for.

Travel credit cards work by earning you points (or miles) on every purchase you make, with the goal of helping you earn enough rewards to book free travel . The best travel cards earn points that you can transfer to various airline and hotel partners — like Amex, Chase, or Citi points. 

A great way to work toward getting a free flight is by applying for a travel credit card and earning its welcome bonus offer. Domestic award flights in economy class typically require about 25,000 points, so depending on the welcome bonus offer, you could have enough rewards for a flight right out of the gate. 

Why You Should Trust Us: How We Chose the Best Travel Credit Cards

Business Insider evaluated dozens of travel credit cards currently available to new applicants and narrowed down the list to the best options based on the following factors:

• Welcome bonus offer — Do new cardholders get a valuable incentive to sign up and meet a minimum spending requirement?
• Ongoing rewards — How many points or miles do you earn on your purchases?
• Benefits — Beyond rewards, does the card offer valuable perks such as statement credits for travel, primary car rental insurance, and airport lounge access?
• Annual fee — Is there an annual fee, and if so, is it affordable or easy to offset with card perks?
• Overall value — Does the card justify its annual fee by offering useful benefits and valuable rewards, and is it worth it?

Read our guide to how we rate credit cards for a closer look at our methodology.

Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews, or recommendations expressed in this article are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Read our editorial standards .

Please note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they're subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.

**Enrollment required.

Eligibility and Benefit level varies by Card. Terms, Conditions and Limitations Apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Trip Delay Insurance, Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance, and Cell Phone Protection Underwritten by New Hampshire Insurance Company, an AIG Company. Global Assist Hotline Card Members are responsible for the costs charged by third-party service providers. If approved and coordinated by Premium Global Assist Hotline, emergency medical transportation assistance may be provided at no cost. In any other circumstance, Card Members may be responsible for the costs charged by third-party service providers. Extended Warranty, Purchase Protection, and Baggage Insurance Plan Underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company. Car Rental Loss & Damage Insurance Underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company. Car Rental Loss or Damage Coverage is offered through American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.

***Terms, conditions, and exclusions apply. Refer to your Guide to Benefits for more details. Travel Accident Insurance is not guaranteed, it depends on the level of benefits you get at application.

For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply

For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, please click here.

For rates and fees of the American Express® Gold Card, please click here.

• Main content

Time travel: Is it possible?

Science says time travel is possible, but probably not in the way you're thinking.

Albert Einstein's theory

• General relativity and GPS
• Wormhole travel
• Alternate theories

Science fiction

Is time travel possible? Short answer: Yes, and you're doing it right now — hurtling into the future at the impressive rate of one second per second. 

You're pretty much always moving through time at the same speed, whether you're watching paint dry or wishing you had more hours to visit with a friend from out of town. 

But this isn't the kind of time travel that's captivated countless science fiction writers, or spurred a genre so extensive that Wikipedia lists over 400 titles in the category "Movies about Time Travel." In franchises like " Doctor Who ," " Star Trek ," and "Back to the Future" characters climb into some wild vehicle to blast into the past or spin into the future. Once the characters have traveled through time, they grapple with what happens if you change the past or present based on information from the future (which is where time travel stories intersect with the idea of parallel universes or alternate timelines). 

Related: The best sci-fi time machines ever

Although many people are fascinated by the idea of changing the past or seeing the future before it's due, no person has ever demonstrated the kind of back-and-forth time travel seen in science fiction or proposed a method of sending a person through significant periods of time that wouldn't destroy them on the way. And, as physicist Stephen Hawking pointed out in his book " Black Holes and Baby Universes" (Bantam, 1994), "The best evidence we have that time travel is not possible, and never will be, is that we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future."

Science does support some amount of time-bending, though. For example, physicist Albert Einstein 's theory of special relativity proposes that time is an illusion that moves relative to an observer. An observer traveling near the speed of light will experience time, with all its aftereffects (boredom, aging, etc.) much more slowly than an observer at rest. That's why astronaut Scott Kelly aged ever so slightly less over the course of a year in orbit than his twin brother who stayed here on Earth. 

Related: Controversially, physicist argues that time is real

There are other scientific theories about time travel, including some weird physics that arise around wormholes , black holes and string theory . For the most part, though, time travel remains the domain of an ever-growing array of science fiction books, movies, television shows, comics, video games and more. 

Einstein developed his theory of special relativity in 1905. Along with his later expansion, the theory of general relativity , it has become one of the foundational tenets of modern physics. Special relativity describes the relationship between space and time for objects moving at constant speeds in a straight line. 

The short version of the theory is deceptively simple. First, all things are measured in relation to something else — that is to say, there is no "absolute" frame of reference. Second, the speed of light is constant. It stays the same no matter what, and no matter where it's measured from. And third, nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

From those simple tenets unfolds actual, real-life time travel. An observer traveling at high velocity will experience time at a slower rate than an observer who isn't speeding through space. 

While we don't accelerate humans to near-light-speed, we do send them swinging around the planet at 17,500 mph (28,160 km/h) aboard the International Space Station . Astronaut Scott Kelly was born after his twin brother, and fellow astronaut, Mark Kelly . Scott Kelly spent 520 days in orbit, while Mark logged 54 days in space. The difference in the speed at which they experienced time over the course of their lifetimes has actually widened the age gap between the two men.

"So, where[as] I used to be just 6 minutes older, now I am 6 minutes and 5 milliseconds older," Mark Kelly said in a panel discussion on July 12, 2020, Space.com previously reported . "Now I've got that over his head."

General relativity and GPS time travel

The difference that low earth orbit makes in an astronaut's life span may be negligible — better suited for jokes among siblings than actual life extension or visiting the distant future — but the dilation in time between people on Earth and GPS satellites flying through space does make a difference. 

Read more: Can we stop time?

The Global Positioning System , or GPS, helps us know exactly where we are by communicating with a network of a few dozen satellites positioned in a high Earth orbit. The satellites circle the planet from 12,500 miles (20,100 kilometers) away, moving at 8,700 mph (14,000 km/h). 

According to special relativity, the faster an object moves relative to another object, the slower that first object experiences time. For GPS satellites with atomic clocks, this effect cuts 7 microseconds, or 7 millionths of a second, off each day, according to the American Physical Society publication Physics Central .  

Read more: Could Star Trek's faster-than-light warp drive actually work?

Then, according to general relativity, clocks closer to the center of a large gravitational mass like Earth tick more slowly than those farther away. So, because the GPS satellites are much farther from the center of Earth compared to clocks on the surface, Physics Central added, that adds another 45 microseconds onto the GPS satellite clocks each day. Combined with the negative 7 microseconds from the special relativity calculation, the net result is an added 38 microseconds. 

This means that in order to maintain the accuracy needed to pinpoint your car or phone — or, since the system is run by the U.S. Department of Defense, a military drone — engineers must account for an extra 38 microseconds in each satellite's day. The atomic clocks onboard don’t tick over to the next day until they have run 38 microseconds longer than comparable clocks on Earth.

Given those numbers, it would take more than seven years for the atomic clock in a GPS satellite to un-sync itself from an Earth clock by more than a blink of an eye. (We did the math: If you estimate a blink to last at least 100,000 microseconds, as the Harvard Database of Useful Biological Numbers does, it would take thousands of days for those 38 microsecond shifts to add up.) 

This kind of time travel may seem as negligible as the Kelly brothers' age gap, but given the hyper-accuracy of modern GPS technology, it actually does matter. If it can communicate with the satellites whizzing overhead, your phone can nail down your location in space and time with incredible accuracy. 

Can wormholes take us back in time?

General relativity might also provide scenarios that could allow travelers to go back in time, according to NASA . But the physical reality of those time-travel methods is no piece of cake. 

Wormholes are theoretical "tunnels" through the fabric of space-time that could connect different moments or locations in reality to others. Also known as Einstein-Rosen bridges or white holes, as opposed to black holes, speculation about wormholes abounds. But despite taking up a lot of space (or space-time) in science fiction, no wormholes of any kind have been identified in real life. 

Related: Best time travel movies

"The whole thing is very hypothetical at this point," Stephen Hsu, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oregon, told Space.com sister site Live Science . "No one thinks we're going to find a wormhole anytime soon."

Primordial wormholes are predicted to be just 10^-34 inches (10^-33 centimeters) at the tunnel's "mouth". Previously, they were expected to be too unstable for anything to be able to travel through them. However, a study claims that this is not the case, Live Science reported . 

The theory, which suggests that wormholes could work as viable space-time shortcuts, was described by physicist Pascal Koiran. As part of the study, Koiran used the Eddington-Finkelstein metric, as opposed to the Schwarzschild metric which has been used in the majority of previous analyses.

In the past, the path of a particle could not be traced through a hypothetical wormhole. However, using the Eddington-Finkelstein metric, the physicist was able to achieve just that.

Koiran's paper was described in October 2021, in the preprint database arXiv , before being published in the Journal of Modern Physics D.

Alternate time travel theories

While Einstein's theories appear to make time travel difficult, some researchers have proposed other solutions that could allow jumps back and forth in time. These alternate theories share one major flaw: As far as scientists can tell, there's no way a person could survive the kind of gravitational pulling and pushing that each solution requires.

Infinite cylinder theory

Astronomer Frank Tipler proposed a mechanism (sometimes known as a Tipler Cylinder ) where one could take matter that is 10 times the sun's mass, then roll it into a very long, but very dense cylinder. The Anderson Institute , a time travel research organization, described the cylinder as "a black hole that has passed through a spaghetti factory."

After spinning this black hole spaghetti a few billion revolutions per minute, a spaceship nearby — following a very precise spiral around the cylinder — could travel backward in time on a "closed, time-like curve," according to the Anderson Institute. 

The major problem is that in order for the Tipler Cylinder to become reality, the cylinder would need to be infinitely long or be made of some unknown kind of matter. At least for the foreseeable future, endless interstellar pasta is beyond our reach.

Time donuts

Theoretical physicist Amos Ori at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, proposed a model for a time machine made out of curved space-time — a donut-shaped vacuum surrounded by a sphere of normal matter.

"The machine is space-time itself," Ori told Live Science . "If we were to create an area with a warp like this in space that would enable time lines to close on themselves, it might enable future generations to return to visit our time."

Amos Ori is a theoretical physicist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. His research interests and publications span the fields of general relativity, black holes, gravitational waves and closed time lines.

There are a few caveats to Ori's time machine. First, visitors to the past wouldn't be able to travel to times earlier than the invention and construction of the time donut. Second, and more importantly, the invention and construction of this machine would depend on our ability to manipulate gravitational fields at will — a feat that may be theoretically possible but is certainly beyond our immediate reach.

Time travel has long occupied a significant place in fiction. Since as early as the "Mahabharata," an ancient Sanskrit epic poem compiled around 400 B.C., humans have dreamed of warping time, Lisa Yaszek, a professor of science fiction studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, told Live Science .  

Every work of time-travel fiction creates its own version of space-time, glossing over one or more scientific hurdles and paradoxes to achieve its plot requirements. 

Some make a nod to research and physics, like " Interstellar ," a 2014 film directed by Christopher Nolan. In the movie, a character played by Matthew McConaughey spends a few hours on a planet orbiting a supermassive black hole, but because of time dilation, observers on Earth experience those hours as a matter of decades. 

Others take a more whimsical approach, like the "Doctor Who" television series. The series features the Doctor, an extraterrestrial "Time Lord" who travels in a spaceship resembling a blue British police box. "People assume," the Doctor explained in the show, "that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff." 

Long-standing franchises like the "Star Trek" movies and television series, as well as comic universes like DC and Marvel Comics, revisit the idea of time travel over and over. 

Related: Marvel movies in order: chronological & release order

Here is an incomplete (and deeply subjective) list of some influential or notable works of time travel fiction:

Books about time travel:

• Rip Van Winkle (Cornelius S. Van Winkle, 1819) by Washington Irving
• A Christmas Carol (Chapman & Hall, 1843) by Charles Dickens
• The Time Machine (William Heinemann, 1895) by H. G. Wells
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Charles L. Webster and Co., 1889) by Mark Twain
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Pan Books, 1980) by Douglas Adams
• A Tale of Time City (Methuen, 1987) by Diana Wynn Jones
• The Outlander series (Delacorte Press, 1991-present) by Diana Gabaldon
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Bloomsbury/Scholastic, 1999) by J. K. Rowling
• Thief of Time (Doubleday, 2001) by Terry Pratchett
• The Time Traveler's Wife (MacAdam/Cage, 2003) by Audrey Niffenegger
• All You Need is Kill (Shueisha, 2004) by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Movies about time travel:

• Planet of the Apes (1968)
• Superman (1978)
• Time Bandits (1981)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Back to the Future series (1985, 1989, 1990)
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
• Groundhog Day (1993)
• Galaxy Quest (1999)
• The Butterfly Effect (2004)
• 13 Going on 30 (2004)
• The Lake House (2006)
• Meet the Robinsons (2007)
• Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
• Midnight in Paris (2011)
• Looper (2012)
• X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
• Interstellar (2014)
• Doctor Strange (2016)
• A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
• The Last Sharknado: It's About Time (2018)
• Avengers: Endgame (2019)
• Tenet (2020)
• Palm Springs (2020)
• Zach Snyder's Justice League (2021)
• The Tomorrow War (2021)

Television about time travel:

• Doctor Who (1963-present)
• The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) (multiple episodes)
• Star Trek (multiple series, multiple episodes)
• Samurai Jack (2001-2004)
• Lost (2004-2010)
• Phil of the Future (2004-2006)
• Steins;Gate (2011)
• Outlander (2014-2023)
• Loki (2021-present)

Games about time travel:

• Chrono Trigger (1995)
• TimeSplitters (2000-2005)
• Kingdom Hearts (2002-2019)
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2003)
• God of War II (2007)
• Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack In Time (2009)
• Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (2013)
• Dishonored 2 (2016)
• Titanfall 2 (2016)
• Outer Wilds (2019)

Additional resources

Explore physicist Peter Millington's thoughts about Stephen Hawking's time travel theories at The Conversation . Check out a kid-friendly explanation of real-world time travel from NASA's Space Place . For an overview of time travel in fiction and the collective consciousness, read " Time Travel: A History " (Pantheon, 2016) by James Gleik. 

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Vicky Stein is a science writer based in California. She has a bachelor's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from Dartmouth College and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2018). Afterwards, she worked as a news assistant for PBS NewsHour, and now works as a freelancer covering anything from asteroids to zebras. Follow her most recent work (and most recent pictures of nudibranchs) on Twitter. 

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