New York to Los Angeles
The clock moves whether or not you are ready for it. This works out by how much, and what a bedtime walked an hour a night would look like on the way there or once you arrive.
Los Angeles runs 3 hours behind New York. To arrive already keeping Los Angeles hours, your bedtime has to move 3 hours later — from 10:00 pm to 1:00 am, on your own clock at home. That is 3 nights, so the table below starts 3 nights before you fly.
| Night | Bed | Up | Moved | Sunset there on this clock | Sunrise there on this clock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night 1 | 11:00 pm | 7:30 am | +1h | 9:47 pm | 9:43 am |
| Night 2 | 12:00 am | 8:30 am | +2h | 9:45 pm | 9:44 am |
| Night 3 | 1:00 am | 9:30 am | +3h | 9:44 pm | 9:45 am |
The gap
Los Angeles runs 3 hours behind New York all year: both ends change their clocks, and on the same dates, so the gap between them never moves.
What that asks of a bedtime
Taking the shorter way round the dial, the move is 3 hours later. At the planner's usual step of an hour a night, that is 3 nights of shifting, either before you fly or after you land.
This is clock arithmetic and nothing else. It does not know how you sleep on aeroplanes, it makes no claim about how quickly anybody adjusts, and an hour a night is a step size rather than a finding. Shorten the step in the planner if a smaller one suits you.
New York to Los Angeles through the year
New York to Los Angeles is three hours back, all year. Both cities change their clocks on the same Sundays, the second in March and the first in November, and at the same local hour, 2:00 am. The gap only wavers for the three hours between the two changes: four hours in March and two in November, while Los Angeles has yet to catch up.
By the sun the difference is almost exactly the clock's, about two hours and fifty-seven minutes, because both cities sit near the middle of their zones. The two cities are about 3,935 km apart on the great circle. Phoenix, which does not change its clocks, sits level with Los Angeles in summer and an hour ahead of it in winter.
Going west, the move is later. A 10:00 pm bedtime in New York is 7:00 pm in Los Angeles, and at an hour a night that is three nights of shifting. Before you fly, bedtime goes to 11:00 pm, midnight and 1:00 am on New York's clock. After you land, it goes to 8:00 pm, 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm on Los Angeles time.
Between midnight and 3:00 am in New York, it is still the previous day in Los Angeles. Los Angeles's latest sunset, 8:08 pm in late June, is 11:08 pm in New York.
Going back
The return leg has its own page: Los Angeles to New York.
Once you are there
With the clocks settled, the ordinary question comes back: what time to go to bed for the alarm you have set. That is the wake-time pages, which count in cycles rather than in zones.