Our columnist, Sebastian Modak, is visiting each destination on our 52 Places to Go in 2019 list. He arrived in Columbus, Ohio, from Cheyenne, Wyo., where the state was commemorating 150 years of women’s suffrage, and then moved on to Williamsburg, Va.

Before beginning this journey, I didn’t realize how often I’d be traversing time, as well as space. Like a sci-fi sojourner crossing dimensions, I’ve found myself in places I didn’t recognize, not just because of unfamiliar terrain, but because it felt like I had landed in another era.

There was the time warp in 1960s Las Vegas and, in Santa Catalina, Panama, two timelines for the future: one of rapid development, another of peaceful seclusion . But nowhere has the demarcation between past and future been as clear to me as it was in Columbus, Ohio, a city obsessed with its future, and in Williamsburg, Va., a place dedicated to its past, even as it reassesses it.

No looking back

Admittedly, Columbus had long been a blank spot in my understanding of the country. Not so for my Instagram followers. I had more people send direct messages to me about Columbus — things to do, favorite restaurants, offers to act as tour guides — than any other place so far.