Year in Review: the Best Travel Watches of 2025

Travel watches have been on the absolute rise in recent years. Where dive watches were once the default option for a first sports watch, GMTs, dual times, and world timers have been making a credible play for wrist time with enthusiasts of all strata. There are practical reasons for this — movements like the Miyota 9075 and Seiko NH34 have made including a GMT complication in a watch more affordable than ever — but I think practical reasons only scratch the surface of this precipitous rise. To tell the whole story, you have to look for the romantic.

There’s an inherent appeal in travel watches. They’re optimistic and remind us to stay interested in the world even when we’re stuck at home, or work, or in the myopia of day-to-day life, when the little things around us stop us from looking further. I think this appeal was only reinforced by a mandatory two-year stay inside, at home, and I don’t think it’s by chance that our collective release back into the world post-COVID coincided with the rise of the travel watch.

I mean, sure, in a world where our phones automatically adjust to new time zones, and most people’s preferred travel watch is an Apple Watch, mechanical travel watches (or, really, analog — there are some pretty stellar quartz offerings to be had, you don’t need to look further than the Timex Q Continental GMT for evidence of that) may be more talismanic than necessary, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. So, with all that out of the way, I’ve pulled together a by-no-means-definitive list of some of my favorite travel watches from 2025. Enjoy, and be sure to let us know what travel watches grabbed your attention this year — as always, we’d love to hear from you.

Traska Venturer GMT Ref. 4216 — $785

Let me get two things out of the way here: First, this is the only traditional flyer-style GMT on this list. We all know that if you want a great travel watch, you can’t go wrong running out to your local AD and picking up a flyer-style GMT from Rolex, Tudor, or Longines, but for this roundup, we’re gonna go in another direction, and highlight some of the other options on the table. Don’t come at me.

Second, I’m wholly biased on this one. I’m literally writing this story with a Traska Venturer GMT on my wrist. I own this watch, I’ve reviewed this watch, and I am an unabashed and vocal proponent for this watch. If you’re looking for an affordable and handsome GMT watch that you can wear every day, you can stop reading here; the Traska Venturer GMT is your answer.

The latest iteration of the Venturer GMT, which launched this summer, is about as close to perfect as you can find from a sub-$1000 microbrand GMT. It’s a watch I’d have killed to have available when I first started collecting in the early 2010s, and it’s a real mark of just how far microbrand watchmaking has come over the last twenty years. This year’s model of the Venturer GMT is the sixth iteration of the model line, and brought with it a few key updates over earlier references. When matched with other updates made over the years, the end result is a watch that is just about perfect.

It’s also the first entry on this list that could qualify as what I might call a “dress GMT.” That’s not to say it’s a dress watch — it’s not, it really is about as core a classic sports watch as you can find — but it’s also clearly not a tool watch. I’m working hard to avoid falling back on a trope-y cliche here, but I will say that this is a watch that would be easy to travel with, regardless of destination.

Dennison ALD Dual Time — $890

Is there a brand in recent memory that had a better first year than Dennison? Hold on, I’ll wait. The brand, which revived a dormant but significant name in British watchmaking, relaunched late last year to massive, and well-deserved, acclaim. In just under a year, they’ve won the GPHG Challenge Prize, launched a crush of excellent production models, limited editions, and collaborations, and found their way onto the wrists of some of the world’s most discerning collectors. And better than all that, these are watches I’ve started seeing on the wrists of people who couldn’t care less about watches if they tried.

With stone dials, an unashamed ‘70s vibe, and a quartz movement, the initial launches of the Dennison ALD were a breath of fresh air, but I admit that for as much as I loved the watch, I had a hard time telling if Dennison was going to be more than a flash in the pan. I just couldn’t see what the next step for the brand would be. I’m not worried anymore. Because with the ALD Dual Time, Dennison showed not only a self-assuredness in their own design language and instincts, but they also made what is undeniably one of the best travel watches of the year.

This isn’t the watch you’re going to take on a dive vacation to the Great Barrier Reef, and this isn’t a GMT watch dressed up for spelunking. This is just a great-looking, fun, compact, stone dial dress watch that happens to have two quartz movements, two crowns, two sets of hands, and the ability to loosely tell the time in two places at once. And with a stunning variety of dial options in various stone finishes (the case is available in either steel or yellow gold PVD), the only reason I don’t already own one of these is that I can’t pick which one I’d want.

Sinn 613 St UTC — $4,230 (On Bracelet)

Okay, now for something completely different because, sometimes, you want a big hunk of steel tool watch. If that’s the case, allow me to recommend the Sinn 613 St UTC. If what you’re looking for is a massively over-spec’d dive chronograph that also happens to have a GMT complication thrown in the mix, then this is absolutely the watch for you. At 40mm across (41mm if you measure the bezel), 15mm thick, and water resistant to a full fat 500m, this is not a watch that will fit under a shirt cuff or play nicely with a tux, but for a weekend spent outside, or in the water? This is the watch you want.

For Sinn devotees, the 613 St UTC will be a familiar proposition — it feels very much like an orientation-swapped EZM 13.1. That’s because it basically is that. Or, at least, the non-UTC version of the 613 St is that. The UTC version of the 613 St feels more like a logical extension of the line, and a refinement on top of it all. The white subdial for the chronograph running minutes helps keep that complication distinction, while the greyed out UTC (the terminology Sinn uses for their caller GMT complication) keeps that complication present without overwhelming the rest of the watch.

For my money, this is the Sinn you should get at the tail end of 2025, and if you live a life where you rarely, if ever, find yourself in a suit and tie on the road, this is probably the best travel watch on the list for you. And if you feel you really don’t need the UTC functionality, the Sinn 613 St Diver’s Chronograph is just as cool for $3,570, and would make just as compelling a travel companion for the traveler who only needs to pay attention to one time zone at a time. And if you want to save a bit more money, and are looking for some more color, then the $2,790 Doxa Sub 250T GMT is another great option from this year.

Nomos Club Sport Worldtimer — $5,190

There’s an old adage in journalism that the most important stories aren’t the ones that make the front page; the most important stories are the ones journalists talk about at the bar after work. In watch journalism, the twist may be that the best watches aren’t the ones that get the most coverage; they’re the watches we all go out and buy with our own money. Well, a lot of my friends are ending the year with the Nomos Club Sport Worldtimer on their wrist, and, to me, that tells the whole story.

Basically, what I’m saying is if this isn’t the watch of the year, I’m not sure what was. I certainly can’t think of another watch that grabbed as much attention, as much wrist time, and was as attainable, as practical, and as well executed as this one. It took an already very cool proprietary travel complication (one which somewhat splits the difference between a world timer and a GMT without really fitting in either box) and made it more robust, less expensive, less thick, and more universally appealing. 

It’s the travel watch I would recommend to almost anyone, and possibly the best execution of a travel complication on this list. It’s a joy to use and a joy to wear, and it’s a perfect example of a brand applying its own perspective to make a watch only they could. For the kind of travel most of us do, the push-button time zone change is as easy as a travel complication gets, and with its long lugs, svelte case, and abundant colorway options (although most of those are limited and long sold out), the is a watch I expect we’ll be loving for a good long while.

Ming 29.01 Midnight — CHF 22,000

If what you wanted out of 2025 was a Ming travel watch, you had a very good year. I’m constantly amazed by just how much Ming has accomplished in under a decade, and this year only reinforced that. 3D printed titanium straps, killer dive watches, and unbelievable moon phases bowled me over, but my favorite releases of the year from Ming were easily the pair of travel watches. The 29.01 Midnight Worldtimer and the 37.11 Odyssey Dive GMT were perfect bookends to a year where Ming took another huge step forward.

Unfortunately, for the purposes of this exercise, there can be only one, and for as good as the 37.11 surely is, my heart lies with the 29.01 Midnight. A successor to the previously released bare grade 5 titanium 29.01 from 2023, the 29.01 reinvented the model with a black and orange aesthetic, a DLC coating, and a black rubber strap. In their press materials, Ming positions the 29.01 Midnight as the “Batman” to the earlier release’s “Bruce Wayne,” and I don’t think that’s far off the mark, and the blacked-out Batman aesthetic lines up beautifully with the skeletonized “flying blade” lugs and thin, bezel-less case.

And it’s a true world timer, showing the time in 24 time zones simultaneously, thanks to a rotating base dial with 24-hour markings. The watch’s city ring sits on the underside of the sapphire crystal, as does the hour track, which, incidentally, are each lumed generously with HyCeram Super-Luminova X1. The 24-hour track is also lumed, but meant to glow a faint orange, so when the cabin lights are out, you’ll surely still be able to track your time zone, and the time zones of all your loved ones (unless they live in an odd offset like Sri Lanka, Nepal, or India). I’ve long been attracted to Ming’s hyper-modern take on watch design, and 2025 was not a year where that changed. If anything, watches like the 29.01 Midnight only reinforced my adoration.