A Clock is the most important thing in this fast moving world where everybody wants to conquer time. A handy clock is very useful to perform timely schedules and attend any important meeting at the given time. Travel clocks are compact and come in various shapes and sizes. You may think that you already have a watch and what is the use of having a travel clock? But the fact is there is something called atomic watch. These clocks are light weight, stylish, handy and will automatically update its time when moving in between time zones.

As long as it is with in US territory, it will adjust itself within seconds. The atomic power clock doesn’t need to be reset and will show you the exact time. Travel clocks are usually used as a gadget to wake you up from a perfect ‘vacation’ slumber. If kept under pillow, it will vibrate to wake you up. Just weigh the options of having a jarring loud ringing phone or a gentle vibration to wake you up. It also has a feature that most hotel wake up calls does not have, a snooze button. There are different alarm settings and you can choose from any of them.

Though almost all the hotels and lodges have a wake up call facility, they have a jarring loud noise which makes the sleeper irritable. Travel clock has a gentle mild vibration with a snooze button. Ensure that you have a travel clock in your hand prior to getting your passport stamped. Such clocks are available in all travel store or an outdoor sports store. You need to be aware of the flight timings at the initial stage of your trip and also you need to keep checking the train schedules once you reach your destination occasions, travel clock comes as a aid to your problems.

The other major issue is the check in time of the hotels. They have an early set time or check in time and if you leave out that time you will be punished for the same. If you are going to undertake a rugged travel, see to it that you buy a weather resistant travel clock and attach at your back pack for easy handling. Many come with bells and whistles and they are able to tell what time it is anywhere in the world. Next time you plan a trip; don’t forget to bring along a working travel clock.

Today’s traveler has many needs. Among the many needs are travel clocks. These clocks are necessary for obvious reasons even in the day and age of hotel wake up calls, a travel alarm clock is a kinder gentler way to be awakened than the excessively loud hotel room telephones.

Travel clocks now come in all kinds of shapes and sizes so that you can bring them with you and have a little display of personality or a small taste of home. Travel clocks can also offer a method of you keeping your time when traveling rather than relying on the hotel services which are on local time for the area in which you are traveling.

You can also involve your children in your travel by allowing them to choose a travel clock for you that will remind you of them every morning, not that you won’t be thinking of them anyway, it’s just a good way to make them feel that they are important to you even when you are away.

We often forget the importance of feeling at home when we are traveling. Little things such as travel clocks, candles, photographs of friends and family can go a long way toward making you feel at home no matter how far away you are. Traveling, especially when traveling on business, can be quite a lonely endeavor. Anything that makes you feel less alone and isolated is a good thing to bring with you when you travel.

Whether you travel often during the course of your business or you only travel for family vacations, good travel clocks will have a huge impact on the way you wake in the mornings and your overall enjoyment of your trip. Make a point of choosing a clock that has an alarm that will wake you in the morning without being overpowering and obnoxious and if you can, choose one that will help you feel much less homesick.

How Time Was Measured Before the Clock

How many times have you wondered, “What time is it?” and turned to your wrist only to find you forgot to put on your watch. We have become so programmed to know what time it is and schedule our lives around it that it is second nature to bend your arm, turn your wrist and get the answer. It has not always been so easy, or even necessary as you will see by looking back to a time before clocks and watches.

Like Night and Day

The precision with which we measure time today is light years away from how it was done, not so long ago. Time was once measured completely by the universe around us – and still is in a sense when you understand the science and physics behind the measurement of time and what makes a clock work (more on this in part 2). What earlier civilizations knew and relied upon each day was that the sun came up and went down and that block of time became a day. To measure greater expanses, the moon and its reliable cycles were also observed. The moon was used to measure the time period which came to be known as a month – more technically a lunar month of 28 days – or the time it took for the moon to go from new to crescent to full and new again.

Ancient Civilization

Even more than just observing the moon, sun, and planets, there are artifacts that show us that time was measured a bit more precisely. Early calendars and “clocks” were found in what is now Iraq, once the dwelling place of the ancient Sumerians, and consisted of a calendar that was divided into 30 day segments according to the cycle of the moon. It was then divided into 12 sections which corresponded to 2 hours of today’s time. Further, the calendar was sectioned off into 30 more parts equivalent to 4 modern-day minutes.

Stonehenge is located in England and was built more than 4,000 years ago. Not much is completely understood about this mysterious structure, but the way it is positioned has scientists believing that it somehow was used to record seasons and the phenomenon of lunar eclipses and the like.

Sundials

The Sumerian culture passed away without the information about their timekeeping being discovered until more modern times. The next phase of more precise time measurement was used by the Egyptians. They created the Obelisk around 3500 BC which looked like today’s Washington Monument, well-known to visitors of the Nation’s capital. This tall, tapered monument would cast shadows throughout the day, but was primitive still in how closely the time periods could be measured. It mostly reflected a change between morning and afternoon, and how the days would get shorter or longer with the seasons.

The sundial on the other hand was first used about 1500 BC and was a much smaller and more portable timekeeping device. It was divided into 10 equal parts with two additional segments representing twilight and dawn. The sundial itself then emerged from a horizontal plate to a bowl shape with pointer and inscribed lines to mark off the hours. It is believed that by 30 BC there were more than 13 different styles of sundials used in the evolving societies of Asia Minor, Italy, and Greece.

When one thinks about the precision of a finely crafted Swiss timepiece it is hard to imagine a time when time was so ambiguous. Could society function without time measurements to the very minute? Perhaps in another millennium society will wonder how we functioned living in just one time.

This is the first of a series of articles on the evolution of time measuring and how timepieces come to become what they are today.