How to Time Travel in Animal Crossing

Stop waiting and pay off your debts today

By
Ruben Circelli
Ruben Circelli
Ruben Circelli
Editor
  • University of Massachusetts, Boston
Ruben Circelli has been a freelance technology writer and editor since 2014. His work has appeared on dozens of sites, including Komando.com, Twinfinite, and TheGamer.
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Updated on March 28, 2021
Reviewed by
Lisa Mildon
Lisa Mildon
Reviewed by Lisa Mildon
  • Southern New Hampshire University
Lisa Mildon is a Lifewire writer and an IT professional with 30 years of experience. Her writing has appeared in Geekisphere and other publications.
lifewire's editorial guidelines

Progressing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is intentionally slow, the game running in real-time. If you're fed up with waiting around, you can time travel in-game by changing your Switch's date and time settings.

There isn't danger of being banned or punished for time traveling. Still, in the Animal Crossing community, it is a controversial topic, with many arguing time-traveling unravels the game's carefully balanced economy. Be sure to think it over before jumping in yourself.

How to Time Travel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Your Switch's system clock sets Animal Crossing's internal clock, so if you change the date and time on your Switch, your Animal Crossing world's date and time will change too.

It's easy to change date and time settings on the Switch with just a few button presses.

  1. Open System Settings on your Nintendo Switch.

  2. At the bottom of the settings list, select System.

  3. Select Date and Time.

  4. Make sure Synchronize Clock via Internet is toggled to off, and change your date and time to whatever you'd like.

  5. Open up Animal Crossing and enjoy the fruits of your time traveling.

The Pros and Cons of Time Traveling

While the Animal Crossing community might be split on time traveling, there are things you need to keep in mind if you do time travel.

What Time Traveling Will Get You

Time-traveling in Animal Crossing will enable you to skip waits for anything and everything; play whenever you want in real life while still being able to enjoy day and night in-game; experience specific events whenever you want or over and over; and get access to more things to buy as well as more efficient ways to earn money.

What You Should Watch Out for

Be careful when time traveling. Huge jumps can cause problems sometimes.

At the Nook Stop, you get a streak bonus of extra Nook miles for checking in every day, but time traveling may well undo your streak. If you have turnips and time travel more than a few days, your turnips will go bad.

Depending on how far into the past or future you time travel, cockroaches may appear in your house, which can be removed by stepping on them. Lastly, depending on your relationships with your island's residents, time-traveling can make residents unhappy or even leave your island altogether.

The Takeaway

Ultimately, the possible inconveniences of time traveling scale with how far and how much you time travel, so if you're feeling nervous, try testing it out by just jumping forward or backward a few days. But if you've sunk hundreds of hours into Animal Crossing and you're tired of waiting to unlock more stuff, time-traveling is the answer!

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