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Any listing of the best world time watches on the market today is best prefaced by explaining the difference between this type of travel watch and the more common GMT watches category. Whereas a GMT watch is designed to simultaneously display the time in both a traveler's local time zone and his or her home time zone, a world-time watch allows its wearer to quickly glimpse the time in numerous other time zones across the world in addition to the local and home time, often in visually spectacular fashion with globe-themed dial designs.
Here we've found 25 world-time watches that are worthy of your notice, with price tags ranging from eminently affordable (Tissot, Ball, Nomos) to exclusive and expensive (Breguet, Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe). Unlike our roundup of GMTs, we didn't disqualify watches with additional complications but we did err on the side of watches more recently introduced to the market. And you'll be happy to discover a few of them that you can purchase directly from our online store. (In the case of the limited editions showcased here, some of which may now be available only on the secondary market, prices listed reflect the MSRP at the time of release.)
Price: On Request, Case size: 41.9mm, Thickness: 10.9mm, Lug Width: 22mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Manually Wound L121.3
The now-iconic Lange 1 has been the flagship of the reconstituted A. Lange & Söhne brand since its introduction in 1994 and the Lange 1 Time Zone was Lange’s first watch with a dual time-zone indication when it debuted in 2005. In a clever tweaking of the original, asymmetrical Lange 1 dial ensemble, the main (i.e. local) time display remains on the large subdial at 9 o’clock, and the large “outsize” date stands in its usual position, while the smaller 5 o’clock subdial, rather than hosting the decentralized running seconds, displays a second time zone on two hands in a 12-hour format.
The “Auf/Ab” power-reserve indicator occupies the spot between the latter two elements, and a switchable city ring occupies the dial’s periphery. The watch’s synchronization mechanism enables the wearer to “swap” between the time zone indicated on the two subdials. In 2020, A. Lange & Söhne upgraded the Lange 1 Time Zone to the manually wound L121.3 caliber, which achieves the same 72-hour power reserve as its predecessor but stores it in a single barrel rather than two, and added day-night indicators for both the home time and local time to the dial.
Price: $995 - $1,095, Case Size: 41mm, Thickness: 11.5mm, Water Resistance: 100m, Crystal: Sapphire, Movement: Quartz Caliber AL-225 (45-month battery life)
Alpina’s Startimer collection of aviation-inspired timepieces welcomed its first world-time complication in 2023. Powered by a Swiss quartz movement housed inside a 41mm stainless steel case, the watch sports a dial in blue, black, or green, divided into concentric circles. The central circle, with sunburst-finished surface, hosts the hour, minute, and seconds hand (the latter distinguished by Alpina’s red triangle emblem as counterweight) inside a 1920-style railtrack minute circle; bordering this is a 24-hour ring divided into day and night sectors, color-coordinated with the dial; on the outer edge is another ring bearing the names of 24 world cities denoting the major time zones, with Geneva standing in for Paris as per the Alpina brand’s Swiss history. An extra crown at 4 o’clock operates the rotating city ring, which can be used to display the time all around the world. The watch is robust as well as elegant and utilitarian, with a 100-meter water-resistant case and a 45-month battery life for the movement.
Price: $59,100, Case Size: 45mm Case Height: 6.55 mm, Crystal: Domed Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Automatic A&S 6022
The original Globetrotter, with its eye-catching 3D “globe on the wrist” design, debuted in 2018 in steel and received a precious-metal update in 2021. The 18k rose-gold case, dominant on the wrist at 45 mm in diameter, is topped by a highly domed sapphire crystal and frames a predominantly blue-toned dial with a miniature global map of the Earth viewed from the North Pole, with rhodium-plated continents and hand-painted, blue lacquered oceans and coasts.
This domed world-map dial rotates under a central gold bridge to indicate the time in all 24 of the world’s major time zones, as indicated by a central GMT hand that points to a 24-hour scale aligned with the globe’s meridian lines. The haute horlogerie finishing on the watch’s automatic movement, Caliber A&S6022, are on display on the opposite side through a sapphire window; these flourishes include NAC treatment and Geneva waves on the plates and bridges, circular brushing on the wheels, and guilloche accents on the skeletonized rotor made of 22k-rose-gold that swings in both directions to build up a 45-hour power reserve.
Price: $3,549, Case Size: 42mm Case Height: 15mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 200 meters, Movement: Automatic BALL RR1501-C, based on ETA 2836-2
This 42 mm-diameter stainless steel timepiece from Ball Watch does double duty as a professional-grade divers' watch and a user-friendly world timer. Its fluted bezel, which ratchets in one direction, hosts both a dive scale and a ring of 24 world cities to check the time in various locales throughout the globe. The crown, with its stylized “RR” emblem (for the “railroad” watches that Ball made famous back in the 19th century), screws down securely into a double-shouldered crown guard. Like every Ball Watch, its dial boasts a high level of nighttime luminescence thanks to its generous use of micro gas-tubes filled with tritium, which unlike the more common Super-LumiNova doesn’t require any charging by an external light source for its superior, long-lasting glow; these tubes, with variously colored glowing gases, are found on the hour numerals, indices, and hands. The watch’s movement, the ETA-based Caliber RR1501C, is chronometer-certified by COSC.
Price: $89,100, Case Size: 43.9mm, Case Height: 13.8mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 100 meters, Movement: Automatic Breguet 77F1
Breguet unveiled its travel-friendly Hora Mundi complication in its Classique collection back in 2012 and has incorporated it into its sport-luxury Marine series this year. The world-map dial of the Marine Hora Mundi 5557 achieves its stunning visual depth with the use of superimposed plates, as traditionally guillochéd ocean waves on a gold base plate wash up against the filigree, turquoise-edged continents depicted on a sapphire crystal pane positioned above it, which also hosts the longitude lines. A tiny sun, in rose gold, and moon, in rhodium-plated gray, indicate day and night in a window at 4 o’clock.
The world cities representing each time zone time zones rotate on a disk at 6 o’clock inside a semicircular window, with the city of the local time indicated by the emblematic anchor symbol of the Marine collection. Most importantly, the watch is equipped with the patented Hora Mundi “mechanical memory” function that allows the wearer to switch between two selected time zones instantly via the pusher and crown. The self-winding movement inside the 43.9mm gold case, Breguet’s in-house Caliber 77F1, accomplishes this feat through a complex system of cams, hammers and an integrated differential to calculate both the time and date in a chosen second time zone.
Price: On Request, Case size: 46.3mm, Thickness: 17.85mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Manually Wound Bovet R28-70-00X
The Bovet Récital 28 Prowess 1, a GPHG award winner when it debuted in 2024, was designed to solve the “Daylight Savings Time” issue that vexes most other world-time watches. Its 744-piece movement is equipped with an ingenious roller system that allows for adjustment of the time to any one of 24 time zones in all four of the world’s systems: Universal Coordinated Time, or standard UTC; American Summer Time (AST), European and American Summer Time (EAS, the overlap), and European Winter Time (EWT). A single push of the crown rotates the 24 rollers, inscribed with world city names and arranged around the large subdial at 6 o’clock, on demand any time the wearer needs to change between the four time-zone systems.
Of course, Bovet being Bovet, even this accomplishment is not enough for a watch at this level. It also includes the maison’s patented double-sided flying tourbillon and a perpetual calendar, whose date, month, and leap-year indications also operate on the user-friendly, ultra-legible roller system, here with a retrograde mechanism that sends them all simultaneously back to zero at the end of each month. The movement holds an astoundingly lengthy power reserve of 10 days and beats inside in a 46.3mm case in red gold, platinum, or titanium. At just eight pieces made per year, it is not a watch that many travelers you know are going to be able to own, but it is a horological triumph nonetheless.
Price: $9,150, Case Size: 41mm, Case Height: 11.35mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 100 meters, Movement: Automatic BVL 257
In keeping with the Italian jeweler-watchmaker’s pursuit of high luxury, the Bulgari Octo Roma Worldtimer, launched in 2021 and aimed squarely at world travelers emerging from extended pandemic isolation, is a world-time watch with a twist: the locales depicted on its 24-hour city ring include a handful of substitutions for the traditional time-zone representations: tony St. Bart’s, for example, replaces Bermuda as the marker for the Caribbean region.
The city ring, which also includes cities with current or future Bulgari-branded hotels, works in concert with the inner 24-hour ring surrounding the bright blue dial to track the time in all of the 24 major time zones while the local time is displayed on the central hour and minute hands. The familiar octagonal case that gives the Octo collection its name measures 41mm in diameter and 11.35mm thick and comes in either brushed and polished stainless steel (on an integrated steel bracelet) or black DLC-coated steel (on a black textured fabric strap). Beating inside is Bulgari’s self-winding BVL257 caliber, an in-house movement storing 42 hours of power reserve.
Price: $18,500, Case size: 42mm, Thickness: 12.09mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50 meters, Movement: Automatic L.U.C 01.05-L
Named for the initials of founder Louis-Ulysse Chopard, the L.U.C collection represents Chopard’s pinnacle of high watchmaking. The L.U.C Time Traveler One, introduced in 2016, finds a sublimely stealthy expression in the Black version of a few years later, notable for its ceramized titanium case and black-and-gray-toned multilevel dial. The watch’s multiple indications are on a series of concentric scales, from analog date to local time to the graduated 24-hour ring that aligns with the outermost circle to represent the time in 24 world cities.
The crown at 2 o’clock adjusts the local time on the main hands, while the 4 o’clock crown, emblazoned with a stylized globe motif, synchronizes the world-time disk with the local time, enabling a quick reading of the time in each of the 24 zones. Behind that sapphire back of the 42mm case is Caliber 01.05-L, made in-house at Chopard Manufacture in the Swiss town of Fleurier, which stores a 60-hour power reserve, beats at 28,800 vph, and boasts a COSC chronometer certification. The watch, limited to 250 pieces, comes mounted on a matching vegan leather strap.
Price: $1,995, , Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Automatic Sellita SW with in-house JJ03 module
If reading the time around the world in a darkened airplane cabin is a necessity for you, Brit boutique brand Christopher Ward has you covered with the C1 Worldglow, whose four-layer sapphire world-map dial is enhanced with SuperLumiNova Grade X1 BL C1, a highly luminous substance that emits a neon-like glow in the dark The hands and the GMT numerals on the rotating world-time disk are also coated in the material, ensuring easy reading of multiple times in any light condition. The 24-hour disk is controlled through the crown with a clockwise turn; a counterclockwise turn engages the red, wedge-shaped ‘city selector’ on the dial to set your preferred city for reference time. The Sellita-based JJ03 automatic movement does its duty inside the 43.5 steel case, behind a sapphire exhibition caseback.
Price: $4,695, Case Size: 42mm, Case Height: 12.1mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 100 meters, Movement: Automatic Manufacture Caliber FC 718
Frederique Constant has been at the forefront of offering high complications at head-turningly affordable prices, and the Classic Worldtimer Manufacture is one of the most essential examples, equipped with a easy-to-use world-time function for under $5,000. Its 42mm case has a luxurious polished finish, a convex sapphire crystal, and a dial etched with a textured world-map motif and bordered by concentric rings: an inner 24-hour day-night scale and a 24-city ring that rotates to set the time in any time zone in the world. At 6 o’clock, beneath the javelin hands that point to the local time, a sundial hosts an analog date indicator with a 1-31 scale. The ingenious in-house movement inside, Caliber FC-718, allows adjustment of all the timing and world-time functions through the crown without the need for additional pushers — also a rarity at this price point.
Price: $353,000, Case size: 48mm, Thickness: 18.82mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Manually Wound GP09310-0002
One of the most technically complex and elaborately decorative timepieces on this list, with a price tag to match, the Girard-Perregaux Planetarium Tri-Axial presents a way of looking at the time in other parts of the world in a novel way — not on linked scales of city names and hour numerals but on a small, three-dimensional, hand-painted globe that makes a complete rotation every 24 hours under its domed-shaped crystal that rises from the main one over the dial.
Made of titanium, the globe — which is paired with a moon-phase indicator, an analog subdial for the local time, and (under its own protruding bubble) Girard-Perregaux’s innovative and visually arresting tri-axial tourbillon — is a re-creation of a map of the world from the era of the 17th and 18th century, paying tribute to the brand’s origin in 1791. The case is a massive 48mm in diameter and just shy of 19mm thick (21.5mm if you include the crystal’s domes) to accommodate all of these high-horological elements, all built into the hand-wound Caliber GP09310-0002, which consists of 386 parts and incorporates the lyre-shaped tourbillon cage that has long been a Girard-Perregaux signature.
Price: $43,300, Case Size: 44mm, Case Height: 14mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50 meters, Movement: Automatic Manufacture Caliber 89-02
Glashütte Original’s Senator Cosmopolite, sporting a new midnight blue dial as of its most recent iteration in 2020, offers an array of user-friendly functions for frequent travelers and features several subtle enhancements to enhance legibility. The galvanic, sunray-pattern blue dial now has sword-shaped hands, replacing the pear-shaped hands of its predecessors and luminous hour indexes, replacing the earlier model’s Arabic numerals. An off-center subdial with its own set of hands allows the wearer to view the time in all 35 of the world’s current time zones rather than the standard 24 indicated by most world-timers.
Those 24 zones, which correspond with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) by full hours, are indicated in white, while the rest, differentiated by three-quarter hours or half-hours from GMT, are indicated in light blue. What makes the Cosmopolite further distinct from other world-timers is its use of official three-letter airport codes (i.e., JFK for New York City) to denote the time zones for local and home time in two windows. Day/night indications for both time zones can be found on subdials at 9 and 12 o’clock. The 44-mm steel case has an array of brushed and polished finishes and houses Glashütte Original’s automatic manufacture Caliber 89-02, with a substantial 72-hour power reserve.
Price: $18,400, Case Size: 46mm, Case Height: 15mm, Lug Width: 22mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 60 meters, Movement: Automatic Manufacture Caliber 82760
IWC applies its proprietary Ceratanium material, which combines the toughness of titanium with the scratch resistance of ceramic, to its Top Gun family of Pilot’s watches for the first time in this new version of its Pilot’s Watch Timezoner. The case, with its matte, jet-black surface, measures 46 mm in diameter and 15.1 mm thick and resists water pressure to 60 meters thanks to screw-down crown. Framing the black dial is a ceramic city ring with 24 world cities representing the major time zones.
IWC’s automatic Caliber 82760, which powers the Timezoner, features a patented world-time function that allows the wearer to quickly and easily re-set the time, along with the date and 24-hour display below 12 o’clock, with a single turn of the city-ring bezel. The wearer simply presses it down to turn it until the city of the desired time zone is positioned at 12 o’clock; the hour hand and 24-hour disk will move in unison with the bezel in either direction for a quick change of the local time and date while the minute hand is unaffected. Mounted on a black rubber strap with a textile inlay, the Timezoner Top Gun Ceratanium is limited to 500 pieces.
Price: $16,800, Case Size: 41.6mm, Case Height: 11.8mm, Lug width: 20mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50 meters, Movement: Automatic JLC Caliber 722
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Geophysic collection traces its origin to a 1958 model specially engineered for scientific research missions to some of the world’s most harsh, unexplored regions. The Geophysic Universal Time takes the international adventure theme to a new level, with an eye-popping world-map dial featuring ocean areas in multiple shades of lacquered blue and sunburst-finished engraved continents. A mobile city disk, easily operable via the crown rather than a separate pusher, borders the dial, enabling the wearer to simultaneously read the time in 24 major world time zones. Once the “universal time,” or second time zone, is set, it won’t need adjusting during travel. The wearer only needs to adjust the local time by moving the hour hand backward or forward, independently of the minutes and seconds to prevent loss of precision. This functionality comes courtesy of JLC’s automatic Caliber 772, made in-house and featuring the maison’s friction-resistant Gyrolab balance wheel, which beats within a 41.6mm stainless steel case.
Price: $2,450, Case Size: 40.4mm, Case Height: 10.5mm, Lug width: 20mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 100 meters, Movement: Automatic Sellita Caliber SW330-1
In keeping with its starkly streamlined, Bauhaus aesthetic, German watchmaker Junghans has kept things relatively simple on its Meister Worldtimer, unveiled at the end of 2021. The dial is not dominated by a visual map motif but hosts a simple layout consisting of an outer ring of 24 cities (you guessed it, one for each time zone); an inner rotating ring for hours, color-coded to easily identify day and night; and a pair of long, sharp-tipped Dauphine hands in the center to point to the local time on similarly long hour markers. A minutes scale is eschewed here for the sake of legibility, always a challenge in a watch with 24 time zones in evidence at the same time. Behind a screwed, sapphire caseback beats the self-winding J820.5 caliber, gathering a 42-hour power reserve. The 40.4mm case is relatively thin at just below 11mm and is available in either stainless steel or gold-coated PVD steel for an extra level of understated elegance.
Price: $9,500, Case Size: 44mm, Case Height: 17.10mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50 meters, Movement: Automatic Caliber MB 29.27
Montblanc takes its mountain-exploration theme to a new height — or perhaps, a new summit — with the 1858 Geosphere Chronograph 0 Oxygene, freshly introduced earlier this month at Watches & Wonders Geneva. As its name implies, it is the world’s first “zero oxygen” timepiece, meaning it has been constructed to be utterly devoid of oxygen inside the case, which eliminates fogging and oxidation that might otherwise occur when using the watch at the high altitudes and freezing temperatures that one would encounter on a mountaineering expedition.
As part of the Geosphere series, the watch features a unique world-time display via two turning globes on the dial, one for each hemisphere, along with a 24-hour scale, a day-night indicator, and a date disk. This model — which Montblanc says has actually been tested on an expedition up Mount Everest — also features an integrated chronograph. The oxygen-free automatic movement is ensconced inside a titanium case, between the “glacial blue” dial and the solid caseback with a laser-engraved, photorealistic rendering of Everest.
Price: $4,720, Case Size: 40mm, Case Height: 9.9mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 100 meters, Movement: Automatic DUW 3202
In 2025, Germany’s Nomos claimed one of the sleeper hits of Geneva’s Watches & Wonders exhibition with the Club Sport Worldtimer, which offers an all-new world-time movement and a more colorful, sportier aesthetic than its more austerely designed predecessor, the Zurich Weltzeit. The automatic Caliber DUW3202 inside the 40mm steel case has the world-time function built in rather than added via a module, which enables the movement and the watch to be impressively thin: in fact, at just 9.9mm high, this Club Sport model is possibly the thinnest world-timer on the market.
A push-button on the right side of the case controls the rotating city ring around the dial, inscribed with a combination of airport codes and city abbreviations, to enable easy viewing of any of the world’s 24 major time zones. The dials — in deep blue or rhodium-plated silver in the standard editions — have an additional 24-hour subdial, divided into day and night sectors, to keep track of home time while traveling.
Price: $10,400, Case Size: 43mm, Case Height: 14.12mm, Lug Width: 21mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 150 meters, Movement: Automatic Master Chronometer Caliber 8938
Founded in 1848, Omega waited until 2017 to roll out its first world-time complication, appropriately outfitted in the brand’s elegant Aqua Terra collection. The multi-level dial dazzles the eye, with an exterior section of sand-blasted platinum-gold alloy with applied yellow-gold indices and a circle printed with the names of world cities in three distinct colors — red for London, aka GMT 0; black for locations with daylight savings times; and blue for non-DST locales. Bienne, Omega’s Swiss hometown, stands in for Paris at GMT +1.
The center of the dial is a sapphire disk with a hand-crafted enamel world map as seen from the North Pole and an outer 24-hour ring in day and night color segments. The case, also in a platinum-gold alloy, is 43 mm in diameter, with a wave-edged exhibition caseback that displays the movement, Omega’s self-winding Caliber 8939, which earns its Master Chronometer certification through its elite level of precision, performance and magnetic resistance as determined by the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS). The original watch was limited to 87 pieces, and followed by a non-limited version in steel, which Teddy reviews here.
Price: $4,300, Case Size: 36.5mm, Thickness: 10.3mm, Lug-to-Lug: 43.1mm, Lug Width: 18mm, Water Resistance: 100m, Crystal: Sapphire, Movement: Automatic Oris Caliber 690 (ETA 2836-2 base)
Commemorating the 118th anniversary of Oris, and named after the Swiss village in which was founded, this 250-piece limited edition is also a modern tribute to one of the independent watchmaker’s milestone timepieces from 1998. The Holstein Edition 2022 is a largely faithful re-creation of the Full Steel Worldtime model that Oris introduced at the tail end of the Quartz Crisis, right down to its modest (for a world-timer) 36.5mm case dimensions. The new watch also features the original’s user-friendly travel functionality, with a subdial at 3 o’clock for the wearer’s home time, and two pushers on the case flanks to adjust the local time on the main dial in one-hour jumps forward or backward; as a bonus, the date changes accordingly if the local time is moved past midnight.
Mounted on a three-link steel bracelet and sporting a blue dial with contrasting details in red (like the plus and minus symbols that correspond with the time-adjustment pushers). One of Oris’ most complicated proprietary movements, the automatic Caliber 690, beats inside behind a solid caseback with an engraving of the Oris Bear, the warm-and-fuzzy mascot that appears exclusively on Hölstein edition watches.
Price: $112,484, Case Size: 39.5mm, Case Height: 12.86mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Automatic Caliber CH 28-520 HU
Occupying the highest level of complication, and highest ticket price, in our roundup is this elaborately styled timepiece from Patek Philippe, which combines a flyback chronograph with a world-time display. Its inspiration comes from a complicated model from the 1940s but many elements, including its verdant green dial, are decidedly modern. The dial’s combination of finishes includes a hand-guillochéd circular motif in the center, which is surrounded by a world-time ring with two city disks.
Printed in green on said disks are the names of 24 cities, one for each of the 24 world time zones. White-gold Dauphine hands reveal the locl time on gold hour markers and the green sundial at 6 o;’clock tallies up to 30 elapsed chronograph minutes. The gleaming, hand-polished platinum case measures 39.5mm in diameter, with a sapphire exhibition caseback to showcase its movement, Patek’s in-house, self-winding Caliber CH 28-520 HU. The self-winding movement uses a column wheel to drive the chronograph function and incorporates a patented mechanism that uses a single pusher to adjust all the time and date indications simultaneously when the wearer changes time zones.
Price: $2,500, Case Size: 37mm, Thickness: 10.3mm, Lug-to-Lug: 43.1mm, Water Resistance: 100m, Crystal: Sapphire, Movement: Manually wound Rado R862 (ETA 2804-2 base)
Rado’s Captain Cook models are based on a 1960s diving watch and eschew the modernist aesthetic that chiefly defines Rado’s collection in favor of a sporty, vintage look. Like many popular watch families, the Captain Cook line has expanded into complicated versions, first a chronograph and then, as of 2022, this handsome world-time model that comes in at a very wearable 37mm in steel. Surrounding the gradient dial with its emblematic hands, hour markers, ruby anchor emblem, and red-type date window, is a large, rotating bezel with a laser-engraved city ring on a ceramic insert. The 24 cities inscribed on the bezel, which has an easy-to-grip serrated edge, can be aligned with the 24-hour numerals that accompany the 12 applied markers, to read world times outside the wearer’s home time zone. Rado has opted for a manually winding movement inside, the ETA-based Caliber R862, which is showcased behind a sapphire caseback and delivers an 80-hour power reserve.
Price: $3,175, Case Size: 40.5mm, Thickness: 9.7mm, Water Resistance: 100m, Crystal: Sapphire, Movement: Automatic Caliber RW3230 (Sellita SW330-2 base)
Independently owned Geneva brand Raymond Weil has been making watches since 1976 that have become well known for their value proposition. The classically designed Freelancer collection, which elegantly treads the line between everyday and dressy, now offers a world-time watch for enthusiasts “who juggle life in different regions of the world,” according to the brand. The Freelancer Worldtimer has a rotating city disk adjacent to a 24-hour scale on the outer edge of the dial to determine the time in every other time zone in the world, using a red triangle-tipped GMT hand, while the wearer’s home time remains plainly displayed in the center by the hallmark barrel-shaped hour and minute hands and lollipop seconds hand.
Two versions are available, one with a black dial in a steel case, the other with a dark green dial that combines a steel caseback and middle with a bronze bezel and two bronze crowns — one for winding and setting the watch, the other to operate the rotating city disk. The Sellita-based Caliber RW3230 ticks inside, behind a clear pane in the caseback that shows off its high-horology finishing, including a rotor with côtes de Genève and a barrel cover with a snailed motif.
Price: $1,650, Reference: 805, Case Size: 39.9mm, Case Height: 10.9mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Automatic ETA 2893-3
For its 160th anniversary in 2013, Tissot issued a modernized version of a world-time watch that it debuted in 1953, its centennial year. Its distinctive design uses a stationary bezel with alternating, engraved hour numerals and markers for the local time on a 1-12 scale, and a 24-hour dial, with each of the 24 numerals corresponding to a city name, to indicate the time in every other time zones around the world once the local time has been set. The 43mm case is constructed from 316l stainless steel, with a water resistance of 30 meters, and contains an ETA-based automatic caliber whose golden rotor can be glimpsed behind an exhibition caseback. As is typical of Tissot, the whole travel-friendly package comes in it a very wallet-friendly price, just $1,650.
Price: $37,000, Case Size: 43.5mm, Case Height: 12.6mm, Lug Width: 21mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 150 meters, Movement: Automatic Manufacture Caliber 1260 WT/1
Taking its aesthetic cues — some of them, anyway — from the 1970s’ “222” sport-luxury watch (itself recently revived in a Historiques edition; see here), Vacheron’s Overseas collection has gone upscale with many of its recent additions, including the Overseas World Time, which is the first in that product family equipped with the manufacture’s ultra-complex Caliber 2460WT, which debuted in a Patrimony model in 2011 and was one of the first, and still among very few, that operated a world-time function that could display the time in all 37 world time zones rather than the 24 based around the Greenwich Meridian (GMT).
The dial framed by the case’s Maltese-cross-inspired multifaceted bezel features a polar map with satin-sunburst continents and velvet-finished oceans, along with a lacquered city ring. In a unique and inspired take on the traditional day/night indication, a sapphire disk above the globe disk, reveals AM and PM in the various time zones with its smoky, shaded tints. The movement has the gold rotor with the engraved wind rose emblem that serves as both a symbol of the modern Overseas collection and a visual nod to seagoing travel and adventure.
Price: $1,795, Case Size: 40mm, Lug Width: 20mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 200 meters, Movement: Automatic Soprod C-125
Zodiac has built much of its contemporary collection on the foundation of the Super Sea Wolf, one of the very first modern dive watches, which debuted in 1953, the same year as two better known, iconic divers, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and Rolex Submariner. The Super Sea Wolf World Time, a limited edition based on a 1970s model, uses the same 200-meter water-resistant, steel case found in the core divers’ models, and an automatic movement from Soprod.
Zodiac has adapted this watch’s bezel and dial, based on those of the simpler GMT models, for world-time functionality. The bezel, in either rich red or deep black, is printed with the names of 24 world cities, enabling the wearer to use the GMT hand, in coordination with the 24-hour chapter ring surrounding the main dial, to track the time in any other time zone in the world. Zodiac first launched this simpler style of world-timer — different from a "true" world-time watch, in which the bezel rotates— in 1970. The Super Sea Wolf World Time is mounted on a sturdy three-link steel bracelet and limited to 500 pieces.
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14 Comments
Great Article. Are there any World Timers that actually update the cities times each hour. IE You set Geneva to 22:00. In an hour the watch will update the Geneva time to 23:00?
Love a couple of these, the Glashutte and Omega are gorgeous. But for now I’ll stick with my Hamilton Jazzmaster GMT Worldtimer.
Love a few of these but I still like my Hamilton Jazzmaster GMT Worldtimer. At a fraction of the cost of some of these. I especially like the Glashutte and Omega models.
Harry Winston Z5 Tourbillon World Time #1
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Mido Ocean Star Decompression Worldtimer, the blue one :)
Hello Teddy, really nice content. I am huge fan. What are your comments on the Girard Perregaux WWTC watches. Especially in precious metals such as rose and white gold? Are they good value for money?
oof…you got me good on the JLC. The one pictured is a 150k tourbillon. I was ready to buy it lol
Why Universal Geneve Okeanos Traveler watch not mentioned
Great suggestions, but the list left off another great choice that is in my collection. I would add the Breitling Navitimer 8 Unitime World Time (AB3521U01G1A1) to this list. The watch comes in either white or black dial and on a steel bracelet or leather strap.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Geographic Q4128420?
The only one I have seen and not found hideous is the Nomos Tangomat GMT. Truly an elegant implementation of the movement.
RADO Overpole?
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