What I do is usually wait until someone moves out and try and find the villagers I'd like to move in for auction somewhere. (Which is hard my time zone is totally off from most peoples and I seem to miss out on a lot of good opportunities to trade.)
So that's why I decided to install the campsite into my town and try and get some dreamies myself if I can.
To my understanding TT'ing forward 4 days after the exiting stage is clear you're Safe (someone moving out or someone declining to move out).
My question though is about TT'ing backwards. I've heard about some accidents with dreamies being lost over TT'ing backwards.
If TT'ing backwards only ever counts as one day, what did those people do/how would you recommend preventing TT accidents when going back? By going into the past and then accidentally syncing it too far ahead making a huge gap?
It's still possible to lose a villager TTing back (in fact, it happened to me -__-
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Accidental moveouts happen when...
[1] A villager is triggered for a moveout.
[2] You are unable to prevent that moveout for a 4-5 days after it was triggered, most likely because you aren't aware that it would happen.
[3] It is X days away (x <= 5) from their boxes date and you TT x+ days forward; OR it is 1 day away from boxes, and you TT any number of days backwards.
You can prevent accidental moveouts by addressing either [1], [2], or [3].
Addressing [1]: Make sure you TT only during times when you are absolutely sure that nobody will trigger for a moveout (aka the "safe" period, I guess). No new moveouts will happen in the period when one of your villagers is moving/planning to move out, or if one of your villagers has been very recently just been denied a moveout. (Please correct me ASAP if this info is wrong.)
Addressing [2]: Be aware and find out potential moveouts. The advantage of day-by-day TTing is that you have more chances to spot them. You have 4-5 days from the date that it's triggered to the date that it's inevitable. One technique you can use to check for moveouts is time travelling with a new character 7+ days forward in the future and checking for missing houses (as mentioned by other posters).
Addressing [3]:
Don't time travel when you aren't sure if there's a villager moveout! That's basically the best, safest advice anyone can give.
Sorry if my post sounds a bit garbled
I should get some sleep but basically that's what I know from experience. Do take it with a grain of salt.
addition:
Losing a Villager because of bad syncing between game clock and system clock
I do advise either using purely game clock or purely system clock to make syncing much easier. If you change both of them to different times, then it can get very tricky making sure they sync together again.
In most cases, when syncing back to the "correct" time, you will need to adjust the system clock first, and then the game clock second. But just take note that every time you change your system clock, your game clock will also change a corresponding interval. (For example, if I set my system clock 1 hour back, your game clock will also go back 1 hour, regardless of its actual absolute value).
