I used to always wear a watch but have given up on that in the last decade.... the era of the ubiquitous time telling devices.

Initially I resisted bringing a watch hiking and backpacking. I would bring a cell phone for emergency use (in the event I could get somewhere that got a signal), but that usually ran out of batteries unless I kept it powered down (which wasn't good for telling time). Then I decided to go "au naturale" and base my idea of time on the sun. That works OK for me (though not very accurate), but has not worked very well with my kids. My kids seem to do better eating in a timely fashion rather than when they decide to tell me they are hungry... usually pretty far down a slippery slope by then.

With that I decided to get back into the watch market. The Suunto's (or anything with a barameter) look nice but are more than I was willing to spend. Based on this thread and some similar reviews around the net I started checking out Timex "Expedition" watches and some comparable Casio's.

First, there is no one "Expedition" watch. Timex makes about a million different watches they call "Expedition". Many are simple, plain analog watches and bunch others are digital resembling the classic Timex Triathlon watch. The analog watches look nice but don't have any real function other than telling time. I consider them more jewelry than functional device. The digital watches look dorky, but tell you the time, the date, have alarm clock and timers up the wazoo. Some even have compasses and thermometers built in. Casio has similar offerings though I found the Casio displays less readable.

With all that said I ended up picking up a Timex T40941 Expedition Watch. It's a nice watch for $26 with all the standard watch capabilities. It even has a little compass on it.