Unless you’re white it wouldn’t be great going too far back in time.
And we have no idea how dystopian the future might be so you don’t want to get locked up and have to work in some Amazon prison warehouse.
So, going back or forward in time like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol would probably be ideal.
How would you interact to travel back to the present as a ghost?
Not OP, but the controller for the time machine could be a ghost with you. Just like the spirits with Scrooge.