Welcome to August, and welcome to this issue of Five for Friday. We see a lot of watches, but none appeal to us more than a world timer. To instantly know the current time in a place thousands of miles away, that's watch magic. To kick off August and perhaps your late-summer holiday, here are five world timers worth your time, in any time zone.

Casio AE1200 World Timer $29.95 (USD) £27.00 (GBP)

You know we had to start here. Known in watch circles as the 'Casio Royale', the AE1200 bears more than a passing resemblance to the Seiko G757 5020 Sports 100 worn by Roger Moore in Octopussy. We, however, prefer the term 'Liberator', as in the watch that liberated us from the Apple Watch.

The AE1200 does all the good things an Apple Watch does, and none of the annoying things: it won't, for example, tell you at 11 pm you're only 9,457 steps away from your 10K goal. It will give you five alarms, a stopwatch, a timer, and tell you the time in Auckland, even if you are in LA. And the battery lasts about 10 years longer than a smart watch battery. Winner chicken dinner.

42mm resin case, 45mm lug-to-lug, quartz movement with 10-year battery life, 31 time zones, and a cool, Bond-like sonar-looking analogue display of the current time.

Timex Navi World Time 38MM $180 (USD) £130 (GBP)

Not to be confused with a different Timex world timer released earlier this year, the Navi World Time was our first watch to feature the rotating world-time bezel. The watch is part of Timex's Archive collection, a part of the venerable brand's efforts to regain its groove and (re)capture the retro zeitgeist of the day. We must say, we approve of the effort. Timex produces solidly likeable watches, most of which fall within our $500 range, and this is one of them.

How does a world time bezel work, one asks? Pretty easy, actually: to determine the time in another city, align your current city's bezel marking with the current position of your watch's hour hand. If you're in London at noon, a glance shows it's 3 pm in Moscow and 4 am in Los Angeles.

38mm stainless steel case, comes with a leather strap (shown) and a woven strap (um, not shown.) Quartz movement, world-time bezel, and a really tiny date window.

Avi-8 Flyboy Wingman WorldTimer GMT - $249-349 (USD) £230 - £319 (UK)

Pronounced 'aviate", this brand produces watches that are sort of, but not quite, throwbacks to the pilot watch era, with names like the Hawker Hurricane, Dambuster, Spitfire, and Mustang. AVI-8 watches are, how to put it, not subtle. Lots of colours, lots of subdials, it gets a little busy if we're being honest. They advertise a lot, and because the W5C team (C as in hundred, see what we did there?) has no impulse control, we brought this world timer to the office.

And you know what? We're glad we did. It's a GMT, which is our second-favourite watch function and valuable on a world timer; it features a nifty, internal bezel to set the time, and it has a completely unnecessary but still awesome exhibition caseback. We also think it will age well; the strap in particular is hardy and strong. It's become our go-to watch for working in the garden, where world time functionality is of no use whatsoever, but it's still pretty cool.

41mm stainless steel case with NH34 automatic movement, exhibition case back, date, GMT, and world time bezel. We opted for Jungle Green, but we might consider one of the other colours, given that on ours, the 24-hour chapter ring is a little hard to read.

Monro Adventure MA-6 $593 (USD) £399 (GBP)

This is a watch of substance. Former colleagues Ryan Ould and Matt O'Neill spent over ten years together at Rotary Watches before forming Monro Design Studio Ltd in 2020. We are solidly in microbrand territory here.

Monro features two other watches in their stable, the Ocean Adventure (a diver, not surprisingly) and the Urban Adventure for land stuff. We think 'Urban Adventure' is an excellent name for a sports watch, much better than the one given to the 'it' watch of 2025, the Rolex Land Dweller. (It was recently pointed out to us that the Land Dweller dial looks like chicken wire, and as the saying goes, once you see it, you cannot unsee it.)

Anyway, that's not the Monro we're kicking. The Monro Adventure MA-6 is a substantial watch, measuring 44 mm in diameter, 49 mm in lug-to-lug length, and 13.5 mm in thickness. It features a GMT function, an internal world time bezel, and an external 24-hour bezel, which, we think, could tell you the time in four places simultaneously (though to achieve such a feat tips us, unfortunately, into the realm of mathematics).

And then there are the lugs themselves, which are integrated into the case. For practical purposes, you're married to NATO straps the straps formerly known as NATO straps, but we think that's just fine. Monro offers you two options: one made of NBR rubber and one made of nylon. Adventure awaits, friends. This is a really handsome watch.

44mm case, 49mm lug-to-lug, made of corrosion-resistant steel. Features a GMT and world-time bezel, NH34 movement, and 100 m water resistance, available in seven different colours.

Alpina Startimer Pilot Worldtimer $669-$1099 (USD) £995 (UK)

Alpina is a brand with some pedigree. Founded in 1883 as a cooperative of skilled Swiss watchmakers, Alpina invented the sports watch in 1938 with its anti-shock, anti-magnetic, waterproof "Alpina 4" concept. Alpina movements were so respected that Swiss watchmaking schools used them to teach students, which is rather like Gordon Ramsay using your recipe for cooking lessons.

Although the watch exceeds our (increasingly flexible) $500 price cap, we believe it is a worthy addition to the list. A quartz watch works well here: no need to worry about power reserve with the super-reliable ETA movement. The watch features a GMT function and date; the world time dial, like the Monro, is easy to read. Perhaps the best feature, for those who for some unexplained reason, do not like Paris, the GMT +1 city is Geneva, a shout out to Apina's Swiss heritage.

(That brings up the question. How are the cities that represent each time zone chosen? Why New York City, for instance, over Boston? Or Athens, Ohio? See the link below....)

41mm stainless steel case, 100m water resistance. Quartz AL-255 calibre movement with a 45-month battery life. Available with a leather strap or stainless steel bracelet, and comes in three colours (we prefer the green).

Further reading

So, want to tell the time in Dhaka?

The 1916 Company takes a look at the history and pedigree of world time watches: https://www.the1916company.com/blog/understanding-the-world-time-watch.html

And the question we've always wondered: who decides what cities to put on a world timer? Is there a master list or something? Some answers here, in a really fun essay posted to Watch Crunch: https://www.watchcrunch.com/timegeek/posts/world-timers-a-tale-of-24-cities-417881

Oh! And that whole NATO strap thing. Yeah, someone trademarked it so NATO straps are now called military straps, or woven straps, or straps formerly known as NATO straps. Time and Tide gives you the deets: https://timeandtidewatches.com/why-you-shouldnt-call-it-a-nato-strap-apart-watch-education/

A whole world of watches, twice a week

Join our community of watch enthusiasts who enjoy Watch500 twice-weekly. Watch news, watch themes, watch stories and cool watches. Click here to subscribe.

Got a tip, feedback, or watch or story suggestion? We'd love to hear from you at [email protected]

And if twice a week isn’t enough, click here to follow us in Instagram.