Time Travel Techniques - What's your favorite?

As an author of time travel mysteries, I am always intrigued by the techniques that other authors use to move their characters into the time-space continuum, either forward or backward. And it seems as if every new book presents readers with more options for "time travel."

So, what's your favorite?

H.G. Wells used machinery ( our first Time Machine ). Daphne Du Maurier used a drug concoction in The House on the Strand. An old clock served as the portal in Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden. And who could ignore the self hypnosis that brought Richard Collier back in Richard Matheson's Time Bid Return. And some protagonists, like author Audrey Niffenegger's Henry DeTamble ( The Time Traveler's Wife) are simply doomed to disconnect from one dimension and travel back and forth to others.

And don't forget the "tesseract" that Meg and Charles used in Madeleine L'Engle's classic children's book - A Wrinkle in Time.

As for me, I've used a variety. Nature and the equinoxes allowed my characters to travel back in time in my first novel. "Something in the blood" allowed one of my characters to ripple back in my next novel. My third used sheer determination and will power, coupled with a "pull" from another century. And now, I am using Snell's Law of Refraction and the use of prisms to capture light and travel in time.

Whatever the method, authors of this genre are always finding creative ways for their characters to enter into a new realm, one we have yet to discover.

Got any ideas? I'd love to hear from you!