My noble quest for the perfect travel watch could fill entire volumes! Readers of my earlier watch reviews might even recall that many of these only came into being because of that quest. Still, when I find some analogue pictures of mine shot during a vacation trip, I can recognize the year just by looking on the watch. If I recall correctly, I only wore one watch during more than one journey within the last fifteen or so years.
So what are the major requirements for my journey watch?
1. robustness. Often I have to do - thankfully minor - maintenance work on my truck during the trips, and I do not take off the watch prior to that. And I am hiking, and do a lot of activities outdoors.
2. Legibility: This is a very important chapter for me: luminous elements are a must.
3. Calendar: I need a date, need to know how many days of vacation are left before I have to return to my workplace! Weekday is also nice.
4. Chronograph: Yes, somehow I believe I need a chronograph: for timing my dog walk, for timing the active driving leg, for timing how long I need to establish the camp (must be quicker next day!), and so on.
5. 2nd time zone: What is generally considered to be THE feature defining a travel watch, is completely unimportant for me. During my journeys, I barely ever leave the large-sized Central European time zone,
Here are some of the watches I wore during past journeys:
The mighty IWC Aquatimer 2000 in steel:
The equally massive Dreadnought:
Seiko Sumo Diver:
UN's Marine Diver:
The Marine Diver's bigger brother, the UN Black Sea:
The Tissot PRC 100 chrono, a very reliable companion:
Habringยฒ's great "PIlot Time"
The sculptural Concord C1 chronograph: despite its shortcomings in legibility still one of the most impressive coats ever given to a Valjoux 7750:
The attractive Hanhart Racemaster chronograph: the only trip I made with a date-less watch:
Speedmaster, of course:
Porsche Design Chronograph, inofficially titled the most abused journey watch:
What a brave girl!
Well, our own PPro ABR Rescue watch is frequently used during "official" deployments:
Zenith Class 4 pilot dial: I really miss that beautiful chronograph!
The famous Deluca, tool, was a nice travel companion, but I did not like the diffiulties I had finding the hands above the white subdials:
And, finally, the only watch that came with me twice, the DLC-coated Breitling Chronomat 44 "Raven":
I hope this excursion into my horologic biography was not too boring.
Marcus