Nostalgia tourism is a specific form of historical travel which targets an era recent enough to be remembered by people who are still alive today. Most of the time periods remembered in nostalgia travel fall into the twentieth century, with the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression and the post-war era of the 1950s and 1960s being popular themes.
Many architectural styles have come and gone over the years. While some of these styles are not commonly used in new construction, many buildings from previous eras still exist:
Cinematic history dates to the 1920s or earlier, where it was a popular form of entertainment before network radio and television, pre-recorded video or Internet streaming. The drive-in theatre or cinepark was common in the 1950s and 1960s, although they are a dying breed today.
Much of the cinema nostalgia centres on individual films, individual performers or specific cinematic styles (such as classic, monochrome or silent film) which no longer exist today. Some films which were originally created as far back as the 1930s remain popular today.
Hollywood, Burbank and Culver City are the home of much of the American mainstream film industry; there are studio tours. Many locations worldwide are noted for a historically-popular film which was shot there or a show which was set there. In many cities, buildings which originally housed a cinema or a live theatre in the heyday of those media have been restored for various purposes.
In some countries, such as Russia, a handful of people still hold some nostalgia for the Cold War era in which the Soviet Union and the states under its control (the Comintern bloc) represented a vast, sprawling empire. In the former East Germany, this form of nostalgia is known as Ostalgie.
Some products which were made in the communist East, but disappeared from marketplaces after the fall of the Berlin Wall, have been reintroduced. See Cold War Europe#Heritage.
Additional historic sites recalling the Cold War era are listed at nuclear tourism and Postwar United States.
All manner of ephemera, including products and advertisements for brands no longer manufactured, may invoke some hint of nostalgia.
Art and antiques dealers use this as the foundation of a business model, as do flea markets, museums and traders in rare used books, phonograph records, comic books and sports cards. Occasionally an attempt will be made to bring back a once-famous brand which is defunct or a historic marketing campaign (such as signs promoting long-defunct Burma Shave, whose verses appeared along many U.S. Highways from 1926-1963).
In some fields, a presumption exists that a product made "the old-fashioned way" is better; foodstuffs, handicrafts and furniture are common examples. Communities such as the Amish, which never abandoned the old traditional ways, often obtain a premium at market as their work is of better perceived quality. In others, a piece of obsolete technology (such as a vacuum tube radio) is painstakingly restored to working condition simply for old time's sake.
The styles of clothing, textiles and fashion change annually or even seasonally. While the use of period costume recreates various eras, including those depicted in re-enactment, role playing and the pioneer village museums, clothing styles have changed dramatically even within the modern era.
There's a Fashion Museum in Antwerp and an Urban Fashion Museum in Hasselt, Belgium; many large cities like Toronto and Paris have a well-known fashion district.
While the wealthy robber barons who ran the rail companies of yesteryear have diminished in stature as rail travel has been supplanted by the motorcar, many grand old hotels from the heyday of rail travel remain in operation, often as historic landmarks at the high end of the restaurant and lodging market.
The explosion in motorcar travel in the 1950s led to many lower-cost alternatives.
Roadside diners, which originally were available as prefabricated buildings to be transported by rail for deployment in key highway locations, provided a very basic-level table service long before fast food joints became ubiquitous. Many modern diners rely heavily on 1950s and 1960s nostalgia in their décor and themes. Drive-in restaurants, in which car hop attendants brought meals into a car park so that diners could eat in their vehicles, were a common fad in the 1950s; the concept is largely dead in Canada, but a few remain in the U.S.
Independent motels, an offshoot of the primitive campgrounds and cabins of the Depression era, became common on most of the two-lane highways of the 1950s and 1960s; a few in Wildwood (New Jersey) have been restored to preserve the Googie architectural style of the era.
In an era when intercity telephone calls were costly and Internet access non-extant, most independents relied on visitors (who had no advance reservations) to simply drop in while driving through each town on the main highways. Neon signage, huge billboards, motels with outdoor swimming pools facing directly onto the roadside and the occasional huge fibreglass statue were among the gimmicks used to attract attention; many motorists simply took their chances that the neon sign at the inn would say "VACANCY" instead of "NO VACANCY" when they drove into town and that the accommodation would meet some minimum standard.
See also: Automotive history
Automobiles were subject to frequent redesign, with styles changing annually to make la voiture de l'année look different from its predecessors. Many of the changes were made for marketing reasons, although the underlying technology has improved by leaps and bounds since the "Tin Lizzie" fad of the 1920s. The motorcars of the 1950s were most distinctive, due to visual cues such as tail fins which gradually fell out of style.
While spare parts are difficult to obtain, many fans of historic vehicles have restored the motorcars of yesteryear to operating, showroom condition. There are antique car shows in various communities; there are also many museums devoted to transport or specifically to cars.
There are multiple itineraries devoted to industrial tourism, including the Motorcities Tour.
Many musical styles have come and gone over the years. Some have been short-lived fads (like the disco style of 1970s dance music) while others have evolved to the point where the modern version of a genre differs greatly from earlier works which are remembered as nostalgia. Musical bands or radio stations which play the music of yesteryear are popular among those who grew up when that music was mainstream; the original vinyl records and paraphernalia remain in circulation as used items or memorabilia.
In Uruguay, August 24 (the night before Independence Day) is Nostalgia Night (Noche de la nostalgia); nightclubs and broadcasters play oldies music while Uruguayans party the night away.
Segwun, Gravenhurst](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Black_Smoke_from_the_Segwun.jpg/440px-Black_Smoke_from_the_Segwun.jpg) There are many marine museums with extensive coverage of the steam and sailing vessels of yesteryear. Often, a former warship becomes a museum ship; occasionally, a decommissioned ocean liner is transformed into a floating hotel. There are also modern ships built as exact replicas of historic vessels (such as Halifax, Nova Scotia's famed Bluenose II).
Occasionally, a historically-authentic steam or sail vessel is painstakingly restored and put back into service.
Much of the nostalgia around spectator sports memorialises the most famous and skilled players of yesteryear. Rarely, one of the original stadiums from the era will still be standing – either still in operation, or re-purposed for other uses as a team moves to a newer venue (which has more space, but typically no history and an annoying pattern of changing names every few years to accommodate the latest corporate sponsor).
There are various Halls of Fame to immortalise the history of the games and the players:
Often, the hometown of a famous player will immortalise a local son who made it big in the big leagues; for example, there's a nine-foot tall statue of Mickey Mantle on a high school baseball field in his tiny home town of Commerce, Oklahoma.
While Karl and Bertha Benz first unleashed their infernal machine on German roads in 1886 and the Wright Brothers first launched their strange contraption into the Kitty Hawk skies in 1903, many older forms of transport remained in use for many decades thereafter. Steam trains plied the rails in many regions for years after the first lines began to gradually dieselize or get electrified; ocean liners continued to ply the seas long after air travel became commonplace. Paddlewheel steam still invoke a perhaps-idealised view of what travel might have been like on the Mississippi River of yesteryear.