Why journey all over the planet visiting natural wonders that are sure to disappear by the time your grandchildren are old enough to curse your profligate ways, when you can journey into the past, which has already happened so you at least you can't screw it up?

That's the premise of Evotourism, a the hot new dance invented by the bow-tie-wearing hipsters at the Smithsonian. The highlights:

• Skip dour, economically depressed London and head to England's Jurassic Coast, where even in winter "heavy rains beat against the cliffs, washing away clay and revealing bones dating back hundreds of millions of years."

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

• Instead of touring fusty old castles, visitors to the Czech republic can check out the garden where monk Gregor Mendel figured out the genetic basis of inheritance! The only problem is that it’s in Brno, which kind of sucks (but cheap beer).

• And of course, no Evotour would be complete without a visit to the long-ago savannah where a giant black monolith came down out of the sky and got all this craziness started, i.e. the cradle of humankind, in South Africa.