Buffer time and travel in Google Calendar booking pages

Published 14 October 2026

Picture a dietitian who sees clients at one clinic in the mornings and at another across town in the afternoons. Clients book through a Google Calendar™ booking page. On Tuesday the last morning client leaves at 15:00; the booking page shows 15:30 free at the other clinic, and someone takes it. Google Maps™ says the drive between the two at that hour is forty-six minutes.

The booking page did nothing wrong. The calendar was empty between 15:00 and 15:30. A booking page only treats as busy what is busy in your calendar; if the trip isn't in the calendar, for the page there is no trip. This guide covers how to change what the page sees: Google's own setting for back-to-back appointments in one place, and the trip for appointments in different places.

How a booking page knows when you're free

A Google Calendar™ appointment schedule starts from the hours you set, say 09:00–17:00 on weekdays. It takes out whatever is busy in your calendar within those hours and cuts the rest into slots. That list is what your client sees.

So what the page closes depends entirely on what stands as "Busy" in your calendar. An event you created, an invitation you accepted, an appointment already booked: each closes its time. Something that isn't in the calendar, like the drive between two clinics, the page can't know about.

Google's setting: "Buffer time"

You open an appointment schedule in Google Calendar™ on a computer: "Create" at the top left, then "Appointment schedule". The setting that leaves room between appointments is under "Booked appointment settings":

• Buffer time: adds time between appointment slots. Tick the box and choose the minutes.
• Maximum bookings per day: limits how many appointments one day can take. It prevents exhausting days but leaves no gap.

Under "Calendars" there is also "Check calendars for availability": events created or accepted in the calendars ticked there block bookings at their times. The calendar appointments are written to is always included; you can tick others too.

If you see clients back to back in one room, buffer time is exactly right: set fifteen minutes and there is time between clients to write your notes and air the room.

What a free account has

Google says some appointment schedule features need an eligible Google Workspace or Google One subscription. The differences that matter here:

• A free personal account gets one booking page. A separate page for each clinic needs a paid plan.
• Checking other calendars is paid. On a free account the page only looks at the calendar appointments are written to; taking a second calendar into account needs a paid plan.
• Buffer time and the daily limit appear in the no-cost column of Google's comparison table. If you can't see them in your account, check your plan; Google changes these limits from time to time.

Where a fixed buffer falls short: appointments in different places

Buffer time is the same for every appointment. Clinic to the same clinic, or clinic to the other side of town: fifteen minutes either way. When your appointments are in different places, that fixed number is either too much or too little:

• An estate agent showing flats in neighbouring suburbs. Eleven minutes on the map between two viewings; with the gatehouse and parking, twenty is a comfortable margin.
• A private tutor who goes to students' homes. Twenty-four minutes between two neighbourhoods at midday, more in the evening rush. A twenty-minute buffer doesn't cover it.

Set the buffer for the longest trip and two appointments in the same neighbourhood wait half an hour apart; set it for the shortest and you're late to the far one. The trouble isn't the number of minutes, it's that they're the same every time.

Once the trip is in the calendar, the booking page sees it

The fix is to show the page the trip: put the trip in the calendar as an event. It's "Busy", so the page closes that time too, and nobody can book over your drive.

By hand: in Google Calendar™ on a computer you can get directions from the appointment's location and use "Add to calendar" to put a travel event before it. The steps are in how to add travel time to Google Calendar. But the whole point of a booking page is that appointments are made while you aren't looking. By hand, the trip isn't in the calendar until you add it after the booking; in between, the page can give that time to someone else.

Automatically: DOFOTT writes a travel block before and after every event with a location that lands in your Google Calendar™, timed by Google Maps™ for that hour; appointments from a booking page included. A few seconds after the booking the blocks are there, and the page no longer offers their time. If the appointment is cancelled, the blocks go and the time opens again. The new appointment's own trip, though, can only be written once it is booked; until then nobody knows where it will be. A buffer about as long as your usual trip covers you in that first moment too.

One detail: DOFOTT writes its blocks into the calendar the appointment is in. If your appointments land in your main calendar (the default), the page sees the blocks on a free account too. If you have them written to a second calendar, make sure the page checks that calendar, which needs a paid plan.

Keep the buffer time anyway. The travel block gets you to the door; the buffer is for catching your breath after the last client. In DOFOTT's settings you can add five, ten or fifteen minutes to every trip; together they are buffer time between meetings, booking-page edition.

The appointment's place has to be in the event

For a trip to be worked out, the appointment's event needs an address. The schedule's "Location and conferencing" setting offers four options: Google Meet video conferencing, in-person meeting, phone call, and none or to be decided later.

• If you have a fixed address (a clinic, an office, a studio), choose the in-person option and write the address. Every booking arrives with it and the trip is worked out.
• If you go to the client's address, Google has no "client's address" option. You can add the address as a question on the booking form, but none of the location options turns that answer into the event's location. When the booking arrives, you write the address into the location field; from then on the trip is worked out.

That is DOFOTT's limit too: no location, no block; nor for a Google Meet or phone appointment. Why the location field matters this much is a story of its own.

Which one fits

If you take bookings with a tool like Calendly or Cal.com instead of Google's schedule, the logic is the same: those tools also find your free time by looking at your Google Calendar™. Tool by tool, on the works with page.

How do I add a gap between appointments in a Google Calendar appointment schedule?

In the schedule, open "Booked appointment settings", tick "Buffer time" and choose the minutes. It is the same gap between appointments, wherever they are.

Does an appointment schedule count my other events as busy?

Yes. Events created or accepted in the calendar appointments are written to block bookings at their times. Checking other calendars as well needs a paid Google Workspace or Google One plan.

Is buffer time free in Google Calendar appointment schedules?

Google's comparison lists buffer time among the no-cost features. A free personal account gets one booking page; more pages and checking several calendars need a paid plan.

How do I stop my booking page offering the time I need to travel?

Put the trip in the calendar as a busy event, and the page closes that time. By hand, add it from the map preview after each booking; automatically, DOFOTT writes a travel block before and after every appointment with a location, seconds after it is booked.

Google Calendar™ and Google Maps™ are trademarks of Google LLC.