The best app to add travel time to your calendar
The best app to add travel time to your calendar depends on which calendar you live in. If everything is in iCloud and you only use an iPhone or Mac, Apple Calendar's built-in travel time is free and good enough. If you use Google Calendar or Outlook, neither has a travel time field, so you need either a manual "travel" event or an app that creates one for you, and a dedicated travel time app like Travel Time is the option that calculates a real route for each meeting.
The short version:
- Only iCloud calendars, only Apple devices: use Apple Calendar's travel time. Free, but it stays on your Apple devices.
- Google Calendar or Outlook, a few off-site meetings a month: create a busy travel event by hand. Free, about a minute each.
- Google Calendar or Outlook, in-person meetings most days: use a travel time app that blocks the trip automatically from a real route. That's what Travel Time does.
- You want a full AI scheduling assistant anyway: Reclaim.ai or Clockwise can add buffers around meetings, but travel time is a side feature, not a calculated route.
What to look for in a travel time app
Before comparing apps, it helps to know what makes travel time actually useful on a calendar:
- It's a real event. The travel time has to be saved to your calendar as a busy block, or colleagues and booking links will still put a call in the middle of your drive.
- It uses a real route. A fixed 30-minute buffer is wrong for the meeting next door and wrong for the one across town.
- It routes from where you'll be. With back-to-back appointments, the trip starts at your previous meeting, not at home or the office.
- It moves when the meeting moves. A travel event that stays behind after a reschedule is worse than none.
- It works on the calendar you use. Google Calendar, Outlook, or both.
Where Travel Time fits
Travel Time is a travel time app built for exactly that list, and nothing else. You connect Google Calendar or Outlook once, and it watches for events that have a location:
- Travel time appears on its own as a normal busy event before each meeting with an address, so it shows on every device and in free/busy lookups.
- Durations come from Google Maps routing in your preferred mode (driving, public transport, cycling or walking), rounded up to the next five minutes, with an optional buffer of 5 to 30 minutes.
- Back-to-back meetings are routed from the previous meeting's location, not from your home base.
- It follows changes. Move the meeting or change its address and the travel event updates to match.
- Return trips and multiple calendars are supported, so the trip home and your work and personal calendars are covered.
It costs $3/month billed annually ($36/year) or $5/month month to month, after a 14-day free trial with no card required. One honest limitation: recurring meetings are supported on Google Calendar but not yet on Outlook. If you're on Outlook, the Outlook travel time guide covers the details.
The five options compared
Works with Google Calendar
Works with Outlook
Adds travel time automatically
Duration from a real route
Routes from previous meeting
Updates when a meeting moves
Price
1. Apple Calendar's built-in travel time
Apple Calendar on iPhone, iPad and Mac has a Travel Time option on each event. Pick a starting location and it estimates the trip with Apple Maps, then shades the time before the event. It's free and works well if all your events live in iCloud.
The catch is where it's stored. Travel time is only offered for some account types, and on Google and many Outlook accounts it either doesn't appear or isn't saved back to the calendar. Colleagues checking your availability in Google Calendar or Outlook see nothing, and the time disappears when you open the calendar on another device. If that's the problem you're hitting, see why Google Calendar travel time is not showing.
Best for: personal iCloud calendars on Apple devices.
2. A manual travel event (no app)
Google Calendar and Outlook have no travel time field, so the built-in way is to look the trip up in a maps app and create a busy event called "Drive to [place]" that ends when the meeting starts. Step-by-step guides: Google Calendar and Outlook.
It's free and works on every calendar and device. It's also a minute of work per meeting, the estimate is frozen the moment you type it in, and when the meeting moves the travel event doesn't.
Best for: a few off-site meetings a month.
3. Travel Time
Covered above: automatic travel events for Google Calendar and Outlook, calculated from a real route for each meeting, from wherever you'll be beforehand. It does one job, so there's nothing else to set up.
Best for: anyone with in-person appointments most days: sales reps, consultants, tradespeople, home-visit clinicians, agents and parents running between drop-offs and meetings.
4. Reclaim.ai
Reclaim is an AI scheduling assistant for Google Calendar and Outlook: focus time, habits, tasks, scheduling links and buffers between meetings. Its buffer settings can add time around meetings, including meetings with a location, but the length is a fixed amount you choose rather than a route calculated for each trip. It has a free tier, with paid plans from about $8/month.
Best for: people who want the whole scheduling assistant and can live with a fixed travel buffer. More in our Reclaim.ai alternative comparison.
5. Clockwise
Clockwise is another AI calendar assistant, focused on rearranging meetings to protect focus time. It can block travel time around meetings it recognizes as in-person, but it relies on detecting those meetings and on a work location you set, and its estimates are rougher than a per-trip route. Paid plans start around $7/month. Check its current plans before you commit, as features vary by tier.
Best for: teams already using Clockwise for focus time.
What about field-service and route-planning apps?
If you dispatch a crew, field-service tools and route planners can optimize the order of your stops for the day. They're useful, but they schedule jobs inside their own app; they don't put realistic travel time onto the Google Calendar or Outlook calendar your clients and colleagues already book against. Many people use one for planning and a travel time app for the calendar itself.
Common questions
Is there a free app that adds travel time to Google Calendar? Not one that calculates it automatically. Apple Calendar's travel time is free but isn't saved to Google Calendar, and the free tiers of AI assistants add fixed buffers rather than real routes. The free option that works everywhere is a manual travel event.
Does Google Calendar have travel time built in? No. Google Calendar links an event's location to Google Maps, but it never blocks the trip on your calendar. See how to add travel time to Google Calendar for the options.
Which travel time app works with Outlook? Travel Time works with Outlook and Microsoft 365 calendars through your Microsoft sign-in. Outlook itself has no travel time feature.