Eight Stunning Travel Watches Debuted at the 2022 Watches and Wonders
Celebrating the return to travel and connecting with loved ones in different parts of the world
It has been exciting 3 days since March 30 for the watch lovers and collectors all over the world, as the top watch brands unveiled dazzling novelties at the 2022 Watches and Wonders in Geneva. I wrote an article exactly one year ago discussing the seven impressive new perpetual calendars launched at the 2021 event. For this year, the most intriguing category to me among all the new models is the travel watches, including both dual-time pieces and world time watches. The timing is perfect, as many parts of the world are ready to return to domestic and international travels. These watches offer hope that life may be finally getting back to normal.
Let’s get right into these fantastic travel watches debuted just 1-2 days ago.
Hermès Arceau Le Temps Voyageur
The Arceau collection from Hermès is known for their whimsical designs. The Arceau Le Temps Suspendu won the GPHG 2011 Men’s Watch Prize with its playful “time suspended” mode. The new Arceau Le Temps Voyageur is a dual time travel watch that displays 2 time zones in a totally novel way.
The local time, hour and minute, is displayed on a sub-dial. The home time is shown at 12 o’clock position by a moving hour wheel. There is a ring of 24 time zones with representative cities in the outer dial area. The unusual design is that the whole dial, including the sub-dial, may be rotated and positioned at any one of the 24 cities.
Imagine taking a flight and landing at a different timezone. There is a button at the 9 o’clock to advance the sub-dial to point to the time-zone at the destination. The local time hour hand is advanced by one hour with a push of the button. There is a red marker on the sub-dial as a pointer to the city (time-zone). The name Le temps voyageur means “traveling time”, which is a vivid illustration of this moving sub-dial in showing the time for each major city around the world. It is a fun “toy” to play with while the pilot speaks and advises the passengers to sit tight and get ready for landing.
There is a 41mm platinum case version in grey dial priced at $28,850 and a 38mm steel case version with blue dial priced at $22,550. Please see here for more information.
Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante
Rattrapante refers to a type of chronograph that has two seconds hands and, unlike a standard chronograph, can thereby time multiple simultaneous events, such as runners running a race. It is a very clever idea by the Parmigiani Fleurier watch makers to apply a similar mechanism to track the time at two timezones.
Here are the descriptions from the Parmigiani Fleurier web page, as I could not do it better. “The watch features two superimposed hour hands, one in rhodium-plated gold, the other in rose gold. Pressing a pusher at 8 o’clock moves the upper rhodium-plated gold hand forward in one-hour jumps to indicate the wearer’s local time, while the lower rose gold hand remains stationary to continue displaying the “home time” or reference time. Pressing the rose-gold pushbutton integrated into the watch’s crown instantly returns the rhodium-plated hand back to its original position — in the manner of a split-seconds chronograph hand — back atop the rose gold hand when the second time zone display is no longer required, as in when a traveler wearing the watch returns home. This highly useful complication distinguishes the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante as an ideal watch for savvy globetrotters.”
This Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante with the remarkable “split GMT function” is priced at CHF 26,000.
Tudor Black Bay Pro
Tudor Black Bay GMT in “Pepsi” colorway was launched in 2018 and won the hearts and wallets of many watch enthusiasts. I love this 41mm piece very much and wrote a review for this newsletter. To the surprise and delight of Tudor fans, a brand new “Black Bay Pro” was released on March 30, the first day of Watches and Wonders.
The Black Bay Pro is a GMT watch that looks a bit like the Rolex Explorer 2 (see the hour markers with dividers on the bezel). The GMT hand is in an eye-catching yellow color, as opposed to the orange hand in the Explorer 2. The movement inside the Black Bay Pro is exactly the same as the one inside the Black Bay GMT Pepsi first released in 2018. What a wonderful new choice for folks who is looking for a travel watch with a tool-watch DNA! The price is a very attractive $4,000.
Rolex GMT Master II Green/Black Bezel
This new model was a surprise for everyone, no doubt about it. While Rolex is seen as very conservative in its product development, it still can make some unusual moves from time to time. We may see that not just the crown is moved to the left, the signature Rolex cyclops for the date is moved as well. I love it, as I’m left handed :).
How do you like it? If given the choice between a Pepsi and this new model, which one will you take? Please leave your comments below. See the official page here for more information.
Montblanc 1858 GMT Automatic Date
Travel watch lovers probably are familiar with the Montblanc 1858 Geosphere launched a while back. In this intriguing worldtimer, two domed globes turn in opposite directions, completing a full rotation in 24 hours. For this year’s big event, Montblanc unveiled another innovative travel watch, the 1858 GMT Automatic Date.
The novel design here is the home time display, which is done by a red dot along the dial outer ring. There are 24 apertures, corresponding to the 24 hours, as indicated on the bezel. The idea itself is not totally new, however. Rolex has used the exact method to display the month in the Sky-Dweller. Nomos has designed a “ring date” to indicate the date along the peripheral of the dial. It is Montblanc who has applied this technique to the display of the second time-zone for the first time.
While the 1858 GMT is a dual-time watch, there is worldtimer-like engraving on the case back. It shows the northern hemisphere in the center, surrounded by 24 cities. Notice that the Paris is replaced by Villeret, a municipality in Switzerland. For an additional fee, the case back can include the owner’s hometown (or city of your choosing) in red, along with the local time zone code. It is the Chinese characters of Beijing in red in the photo here.
The Montblanc 1858 GMT Automatic Date is priced $3,515 on a strap or $3,730 on a bracelet and costs $4,100 with a customized case back.
Patek Philippe World Time 5230P-001
Patek Philippe invented the world time complication. Therefore, the world time models from Patek Philippe are highly desirable and collectable. Any moves by Patek Philipps in their world time collection is closely watched. For this year, two earlier world time models were phased out, the 5230G-014 (white gold case) and the 5230R-012 (rose gold case). The new model unveiled at Watches and Wonders is 5230P-001 in blue dial and platinum case.
World time watch with 24 timezones is the ultimate travel watch. The dial center is adorned with a new circular hand-guilloched motif. The ultra-thin self-winding movement with its two city and 24-hour rotating disks serves to keep simultaneous and permanent track of the time in all 24 time zones. Thanks to an ingenious mechanism patented in 1999, the user can simultaneously correct all the World Time displays in one-hour increments by simply pressing the pusher at 10 o’clock.
This world time watch in platinum case is priced at $70,970. Please see here for more information.
Patek Philippe World Time 5231G-001
Another major change is the retirement of 5231J-001 (yellow gold case) and the introduction of 5231G-001 (white gold case). Both models feature an exquisite and sublime Grand Feu cloisonné enamel dial. But there is a fairly big difference. Could you see what it is? :)
In the earlier model in the yellow gold case, the map in the dial is centered on Europe, Africa and Americas. For the new model, the map is centered on South-East Asia and Oceania. A very nice touch by the Patek Philippe designers to present a new view point.
Another difference is the price, now at $88,710 (compared to $79,250 for the yellow gold model in 2021). Please see here for more information.
Patek Philipps Annual Calendar, Travel Time 5326G-001
Finally, the sickest new travel watch this season got to be this breathtaking combo of travel time and annual calendar, two of the most practical complications. While many dual time watches adopt a 24-hour ring for the second timezone, one drawback is the duplicate information when the wearer is at home (not traveling). The Calatrava Pilot Travel Time watches solve this problem by using the same 12-hour display. So, the local time hour hand and the home time hour hand may be overlapped when the wearer is not travelling. There is a day/night indicator for the local time and another day/night indicator for the home time. It is a perfect design without any ambiguity.
Annual calendar is another invention by Patek Philippe. The mechanism changes date correctly at the end of every month except February. An annual calendar is a very useful complication incurring much lower cost compared to a perpetual calendar. Please see my review of Patek Philippe 5205G-013 annual calendar, if you are interested in learning more about this wonderful function.
The combination of two complex complications requires the development of a brand new caliber. Just by the long caliber name we know that it is massively complicated: “31-260 PS QA LU FUS 24H”. Note that the date change is driven by the local time. So the travel time mechanism and annual calendar have to be integrated adequately to yield the correct time/date results. The total thickness of the movement is 5.6mm (2.6 mm for the base movement, 3 mm for the Annual Calendar and Travel Time module). It is indeed an incredible horological wonder!
The Patek Philipps Annual Calendar, Travel Time 5326G-001 is priced at $76,880. This is of course a sky-high amount. However, considering this timepiece effectively combines a Calatrava Pilot Travel Time 5524G-001 ($55,590) and an Annual Calendar 5396G-011 ($55,590) into one piece, the price seems reasonable. Kudos to Patek Philippe for pushing the horological envelope and launching 3 travel watches at the same time!
I was so intrigued by these new travel watches that I could not wait to share my thoughts with you. What are your favorite pieces among these eight beauties? Take care and enjoy this wonderful hobby!