Animal Crossing is built around being a real-time game, in which a new real-life day means a new Animal Crossing day. That's the entire concept of the built-in clock. I have been playing City Folk for a long time, and because I wanted to see what happened, I sometimes time traveled forward a year or something like that. I wanted my grass to grow back, and I believe I hoped it would grow back, but overall I just did it to see what happened. As young as I was, I messed up a lot which led me to tears eventually. I hated what I did and the consequences: that I got my carnation letters already, that I received the letter to my future self (for which I asked my mother to set a date so I didn't know when I'd get it) and in the worst case that a villager I loved moved out. My villagers would ask why I'd been away for so long, my hair was messed up, weeds were everywhere and I felt horrible. I learned that time traveling is not meant to be the hard way, and have been scared of it since. I would not time travel so the next day would occur, since it simply won't make a difference: unless an event is on that day of course. But especially then I wouldn't, because I would look forward to the Saturday because of bug-offs and fishing tourneys.
What I'm trying to say is that I don't time travel (and don't see it as a way of playing, it's pretty much cheating with the ability to change the date you are given) and I have reasons for it; the entire idea of Animal Crossing goes away if you do so and it can only lead to bad things. There are simply no benefits to it, so I don't see why you would even want to.
What I hate about this community that everybody assumes that everyone time-travels just like them; when I were to announce one of my villagers was moving on a certain date, people would ask me to time travel to the villager's moving date or to 'hold him' for them. You time travel, alright. That's your choice. But don't assume everybody abuses the game like that.
Almost everybody here time travels, and 'challenges' are made up to play the game without time travel. Is it seriously hard to play the game without changing the clock all the time? That's messed up. But yeah anyway, I pretty much hate time traveling because of my bad experiences with it and because it'll only bring negative things to it. The only reason I would ever 'time travel' is because of daylight saving time.
