When you go on a trip, you usually want to stay somewhere central, with easy access to a few local destinations: a conference centre, a few restaurants, a fun neighbourhood. You can’t just eyeball a map. Travel times depend on more than just distance; they rely on street layout, highways and public transit. You could test each travel time on Google Maps, but sometimes you just want to see one big map of everywhere you can go in an hour. For that, try TravelTime Maps.
Name a location and TravelTime Maps will show you all the places you can get to in 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes. It will also show you nearby hotels, cinemas, or coffee shops. You can even select multiple locations and get a Venn diagram of what’s close to all of them. For example, here’s a map of cinemas close to the centre of Sydney.
TravelTime Maps is a demo for the TravelTime platform, which sells API access to job search and real estate sites. The demo is bad at recognising some location names, but if you have trouble you can just drag the pin anywhere on the map.
Unlike Google Maps, TravelTime doesn’t have traffic congestion data, so its drive times are optimistic. But for public transportation (only available for NSW), it uses the same data as Google Maps. (You can tell it what day and time you’ll be travelling.) This tool is more useful for general planning; check specific trips with Google Maps and local transit services.
It’s also a cute way to see what’s really “close to home” — or to find a faraway place where no one can hear you scream.
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