Travel time calculator
Enter the distance and your speed, get the drive time and arrival.
How do I calculate travel time?
Divide the distance by the average speed: 300 miles at 60 mph is 5 hours. Add your stops — two 15-minute breaks make it 5 hours 30 minutes.
What average speed should I use?
Lower than the speed limit: traffic, towns and fuel stops pull it down. Your navigation app's estimate divided into the distance gives a realistic number for your route.
How do I work out my arrival time?
Enter the departure time: leaving at 8:00 AM on a 5 h 30 min trip, you arrive at 1:30 PM. Crossing into another time zone changes the clock time — the time zone converter handles that.
How far can I drive in a day?
At an average of 60 mph, 8 hours of driving is 480 miles.
Does it work in kilometers?
Yes — pick kilometers and enter the speed in km/h: 500 km at 100 km/h is 5 hours.
Worked example: 420 miles with three stops
Driving time is 420 ÷ 58 = 7.24 hours, which is 434.5 minutes or 7 h 14 min. Three stops of 20 minutes add 60 minutes. The total is 494.5 minutes, or 8 h 14 min. Leaving at 6:30 AM, you would arrive at about 2:44 PM, before any change of time zone. Entering the same trip with a 65 mph average instead takes 7 h 28 min, which is 47 minutes less: the assumed speed matters more than the stops.
How do I average speeds correctly?
Average speed is total distance divided by total time, not the mean of the speeds. If you drive 50 miles at 70 mph and 50 miles at 40 mph, the time is 50 ÷ 70 + 50 ÷ 40 = 1.96 hours, so the average over the 100 miles is 50.9 mph, not 55. The slow part takes more time, so it counts for more. When you plan a route with different road types, add up the time for each leg and use the total.
How much extra time should I allow?
The Federal Highway Administration describes travel time reliability with a buffer index, the extra time travelers add to the average: it is the 95th percentile travel time minus the average, divided by the average. In the FHWA’s example, a 40% buffer index on a 20-minute average trip means budgeting 8 extra minutes, 28 in all. The FHWA also points out that incidents and weather combine to cause unexpected delay: a Seattle route that takes about 12 minutes in free flow and averages 18 can take nearly 25 minutes. For an important arrival, add a buffer to the calculated time instead of using the average.
Common mistakes with travel time
Reading decimal hours as hours and minutes: 5.5 hours is 5 hours 30 minutes, not 5:50, and 5.5 h = 5 h 30 min. Mixing units, such as miles with a speed in km/h. Using the speed limit as the average and ignoring traffic and fuel or charging stops. Counting stops once for the whole trip when each stop adds its own time. Forgetting time zones when you read the arrival clock time. And taking the average as a promise: real trips vary, so build in a buffer.
Sources and related calculators
Sources: U.S. Federal Highway Administration, Office of Operations, “Travel Time Reliability: Making It There On Time, All the Time” (buffer index, planning time index, 95th percentile travel time, causes of unexpected delay); average speed = total distance ÷ total time. Related: speed calculator, fuel cost calculator, time zone converter and time calculator.