Understand
[edit]While the use of watches has decreased with mobile phones getting common, they can be nice accessories and are often more practical than the phone for checking the time. Some watches have additional functionality.
An alarm clock can be useful, as your accommodation might not have one. For most travellers their mobile phone includes the functionality, and is better equipped for handling time zone changes – although a dumb clock can sometimes avoid problems with the phone outsmarting itself (and thus behaving unpredictably). Some alarm clocks depend on the frequency of the local electricity grid.
A generic watch with plastic cover can be bought for cheap, and can be discarded or lost without too much pain.
A sport watch is often watertight to great depths and can include functionality useful e.g. for divers (who might need a real dive computer, which is a kind of smartwatch), and more reliable than a smartphone in harsh environments.
A smartwatch can be convenient, with many of the functions of a smartphone, although often offloading some of their functionality to a compatible one. They often by default include some more unusual apps, typically for measuring exercise and your general well-being in a number of ways.
Pirated watches are sold cheaply at markets in low-income countries. Some of these are deliberately made poorly enough not to be mistaken for a brand watch. Just like other pirated goods, they might be confiscated at border crossings, with possible consequences for the wearer.
Buy
[edit]Switzerland has a legacy of watchmaking. Fashion capitals such as Paris, Milan and London are also good places to buy a high-end watch.
Japan is famous for Seiko's release of the first liquid crystal display digital watch in 1973.
Germany is known for its aviator watches (called Fliegeruhr in German), originally produced for Luftwaffe pilots during World War II.
Russia is known for the watches produced at the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in Peterhof, with a legacy dating back to Imperial Russian times.
Stay safe
[edit]A watch can easily be lost or stolen, and an expensive watch might give away the fact that someone is rich, and thereby a potentially lucrative target for scams and robbery.
On the other hand, having a cheap watch at your wrist can save you from showing your expensive smartphone when checking the time.
Cope
[edit]In international travel, and travelling across large east–west countries such as Australia, Canada, Russia, or the U.S.A., you will cross time zones, each having a new wall clock time, usually an hour before or after the previous time, sometimes with a difference of two or even three hours; in some locations also half (or in the extreme case of Nepal and a corner of Western Australia, quarter) hours may be used.
There are different strategies on how to cope with time zones. Some timepieces get and adjust the time they show according to time servers on the internet or GPS or mobile networks, either automatically or asking you to manually confirm the change. Near borders, the system is sometimes mistaken on on which side you are, which can get frustrating. To avoid changing times, especially with timepieces where an "OK" or "advance by an hour" aren't available, and where changes are frequent and the time differences just an hour, some people choose to leave the timepiece in domestic time and calculate local time by themselves – but mistakes come easy.
When changing time zones, or DST kicking in, alarms may behave weirdly. They might get set according to UTC, not caring about time zones or DST, they may follow current time, whatever they think that to be, or they may take into account that you may have forgot about time changes and go off at the earliest time that you may have intended – some even assuming that you might have got the DST change backwards.