Viking Hiking and Other Time Travel¹

A new form of immersive experience has emerged in the intersection between adventure tourism, slow tourism, living history, and live-action role-playing. Sprung from the “Viking community” and live-action role-playing, with connections to professional archaeology, heritage, and tourism, it is an immersive, slow adventure. Its nature setting, slow experiential ethos, and deep immersion make it distinct. Through a set of case studies from Norway and Scotland, this chapter investigates how past and present identities are negotiated and authenticity arises as the past comes alive in the present imbued with values, meanings, and hopes for a desired future. Here termed time travel and analyzed in the theoretical contexts of “slow adventure” tourism and Critical Heritage Studies, this type of immersion has proven to be a deeply felt experience for participants.