If you have a busy work or social life, you’d probably find it useful if you could see how long it’ll take you to get from one appointment to the next.
Better yet, wouldn’t it be great if your Mac or iPhone could just tell you when it’s time to leave? Thanks to the Maps app in OS X Mavericks this is a reality. Check out how to determine travel time in the Calendar for OS X Mavericks
SEE ALSO: How to Install Mavericks on an External Drive
Before You Get Started
There are a few things you need before you get started. First, you need to be running OS X Mavericks on your Mac and iOS 7 or above on your iPhone/iPad for their part in this.
Next, you need to have location turned on for your Mac, which requires Wi-Fi to be on as well.
Lastly, you need to have your iOS device and your Mac synced to the same calendar so the notifications go through to both. With those in place, here’s how it works.
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Determine Travel Time
First, open up the Calendar app on your Mac. Next, locate the event you want to get travel time for and double click on it. You can also double click on a day that you’d like to add a new event to as well.
Make sure the event you’re looking at has a real address entered, too.
Click on the drop down next to travel time and select the car icon if you’re traveling by car, or the walking man icon if you’re hoofing it to your appointment.
With your method of transportation picked, it’s time to make sure you leave in enough time. Instead of setting the reminder for a specific amount of time, click on the drop down next to alert and choose When I need to leave. Now you’ll get an alert set for the amount of travel time you’ll need.
Thanks to Apple Maps making the jump to OS X, the Calendar app pulls the travel information from Maps and links it in your appointment listing.
While this is pretty useful, what if you have more than one appointment? The Calendar app is actually smart enough to tell you how long it’ll take you to get to your next appointment from the one before it.
Now you can set your alert for When I need to leave and you’ll always know when you have to leave one appointment for the next without having to do creative math in your head to set your alert.
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The Alerts
When it’s time to go you’ll get an alert on your iPhone as well as your Mac.
Now this doesn’t account for traffic or catching all the red lights but it’s a pretty good estimate and if you set your appointments 5-10 minutes early you’ll always get there on time.
