There is a saying about traveling through time zones that “west is best; east is a beast”, but I’ve found both are difficult and it varies by person. Honestly jumping forward 8 hours (even with super early European arrivals) is easier for me than traveling to the California falling back 3 hours.
We suggest making your arrival plans based on the time changes you’ll experience on the trip. For example, we recently flew overnight from Chicago to Amsterdam. When we arrived in Amsterdam it was 1:00am “body time” but 7:00am local time in Amsterdam. I had pre-arranged an early check-in at our Airbnb so we went there first and took a nap for a couple hours before heading out to sight see. I knew none of our party slept well on overnight flights so we planned accordingly and it all worked out for the best. That short nap helped us feel rested yet also allowed us to be sufficiently tired at the normal bedtime and just like that we were on European time for the rest of the week.
Lead. Travel. Pray. 