Why historians seek out physical history

Why do historians like to visit historical places and objects in person?

Because seeing and touching physical evidence can provide an understanding that reading alone cannot supply.

Historians visit places and surviving objects because physical encounters can produce a different understanding from reading alone. The Ship Shape crew's trips to Japan and Scandinavia are examples of this kind of historical travel. Seeing and touching material evidence makes the past tangible in ways that a written description cannot fully reproduce. In-person observation adds a sense of scale, texture, and presence that remains abstract on the page.