Add travel time to TidyCal
Published 17 September 2026
TidyCal's buffer is a gap between bookings: a fixed number of minutes after each one, before the next TidyCal booking can start. It doesn't know where a meeting is, and it doesn't reach the other meetings in your calendar. DOFOTT reads the address of each booking once it reaches your Google Calendar and adds a travel block before and after it, timed by Google Maps. Those blocks are busy time, so your TidyCal booking page stops offering the hours you'll spend on the road. Nothing to install in TidyCal.
What TidyCal does, and what it doesn't
In a booking type's restrictions you can add a gap between bookings. It's added after each booking, so the next slot starts once the gap is over. That keeps TidyCal bookings apart. It doesn't put anything before a meeting, it's the same number for every trip, and a meeting someone invited you to in Google Calendar gets no gap at all.
What TidyCal does read is your calendar: it offers a time only when the calendars you've connected with reading enabled are free. That's where DOFOTT comes in. Its blocks are busy events in Google Calendar, so TidyCal sees the road as taken.
Three steps
- Check that TidyCal reads your Google Calendar. Your Google account should be connected in TidyCal with reading enabled for the calendar your meetings are in, and the booking type shouldn't be set to ignore calendar conflicts.
- Connect DOFOTT. On dofott.com, click Connect Google Calendar and sign in with Google. Set your home address, a work address if you have one, and how you travel: driving, transit, walking or cycling.
- Give in-person booking types a location. Every booking of that type now reaches Google with an address, and DOFOTT adds the trip.
What happens after that
- Someone books you, the trip appears. TidyCal writes the booking to Google Calendar, DOFOTT hears about it there and adds a block before and after it, from wherever you'll be coming from: home, work in your work hours, or the meeting before.
- The booking page knows about the road. The blocks are busy events, so TidyCal treats them like any other conflict, before a meeting as well as after it.
- Reschedule or cancel, the blocks follow. When a booking moves, its blocks move with it. When it's cancelled, they go.
- Video calls stay as they are. A booking whose location is a video link has no road to it, so it gets no block.
Things to know
- Keep the gap for the trip you can't see yet. DOFOTT adds the trip once a booking is made, because until then nobody knows where it is. A gap about the length of a typical trip keeps two TidyCal bookings from landing too close before that.
- A clash stays visible. If a trip runs into another meeting, DOFOTT doesn't shorten either. You see the overlap in your calendar and decide.
- Google Calendar only. TidyCal can read Microsoft and Apple calendars too; DOFOTT can't add travel time to those yet.
- The durations come from Google Maps, for the time of day the meeting starts: live traffic when driving, timetables for transit. For parking or finding the room, add a 5, 10 or 15-minute margin in DOFOTT's settings.
- One button to undo. Delete account and remove all DOFOTT blocks in DOFOTT's settings takes out every block it created. Your TidyCal bookings aren't touched.
Connect Google Calendar → Free during beta.
Does TidyCal have a travel time feature?
TidyCal has a gap between bookings: a fixed number of minutes after each one. It does not look up the route or put anything before a meeting. DOFOTT adds the real travel time from Google Maps, before and after.
Do I need to install anything in TidyCal?
No. DOFOTT connects to your Google account once. TidyCal writes bookings there and reads your busy time there, so the blocks work on their own.
Will my TidyCal booking page stop offering the time I spend travelling?
Yes, as long as reading is enabled for the Google calendar your meetings are in and the booking type does not ignore calendar conflicts. The one exception is an invitation you have not said yes to: its blocks stay free until you do.
Is DOFOTT free?
Free during beta. When a paid plan comes, you get 30 days' notice by email, and the blocks already in your calendar stay.