You've got three hours. What's actually worth doing?
Every other travel app answers a question nobody asked: what is close. Nearby answers the real one — what is reachable in the time you actually have, with the journey back already subtracted.
Two questions, then results.
How long have you got, and how are you moving. That is the whole input. Everything after it is filtered by whether it fits — never a raw distance list, never a ranked pile of things you cannot get to.
How long have you got?
Three hours by car reaches 38 km — and back. Glencoe makes it. Skye doesn't.
Grouped by how far, walkable first.
Within a short walk · 3
Within 30 min by car · 6
Steall Falls, Glen Nevis
Free20 min drive + 1h walk · best light 16:30, right as the rain stops
Doesn't fit today
Mallaig by the Jacobite — 1h20 each way, last return 18:40. Isle of Skye — 2h10 drive. Glenfinnan — 45 min, but you're going tomorrow.
Give it a whole day instead →
The rings are real drive times, not circles.
Reach is computed from the road and timetable graph — single-track Highland roads, parking time at the far end, uphill walking, and the actual ferry departure. A straight-line radius dressed up as minutes is how apps tell you Skye is close.
| Mode | Bands | What shrinks it |
|---|---|---|
| On foot | 5 / 15 / 30 min | Elevation-aware — 15 minutes uphill is not 15 minutes flat. |
| By car | 15 / 30 / 60 min | Parking time added at the destination; single-track roads penalised. |
| Train | Timetable-bound | Shows the actual next departure and the last safe return, not a radius. |
| Ferry | Timetable-bound | Foot passenger and vehicle are different answers; weather risk is stated. |
| Bus | Where service is real | Hidden entirely below roughly hourly service, rather than shown and misleading. |
Same engine, two behaviours.
While you're planning
Browsed per base — "what's within thirty minutes of Betws-y-Coed?" — and picking something sends it to the idea pool for the group to vote on.
While you're travelling
Anchored to where you are and the time you have left, and picking something adds it straight to today. No vote — you're standing in the rain.
Questions people actually ask
- Do I need an account to use Nearby?
- No. Nearby works signed out, with no trip and no sign-up. Tell it how long you have and how you are moving, and it answers.
- How is "reachable" worked out?
- From a routing engine on the real road and timetable graph, not from a circle drawn on a map. Single-track roads, parking time, uphill walking and ferry departures all shrink the answer honestly — and the journey back is subtracted before anything is shown to you.
- Do free things get shown as prominently as bookable ones?
- Yes, identically. A clifftop walk and a €45 guided tour are ranked by how good they are for you and nothing else. Commission plays no part in the order, and there is no sponsored slot in Nearby at all.
- What happens when nothing fits?
- It says so, with the number that makes it true: Skye is two hours ten each way, so in three hours it does not fit. The useful answer is sometimes no.