How far apart your stops should be

A radius says how far a place can be from you. It says nothing about how far two places are from each other — pick both ends of a 5 mile search and the walk between courses is 10 miles. So every hop gets its own limit, and on foot it is never more than a mile.

The radius and the hop are two different numbers

This is the mistake almost every planner makes, including the first version of ours. A search radius is a circle around you. Two results can both sit inside it and still be at opposite edges, which is twice the radius apart from each other. Nothing in a rating knows about that drive.

So the transfer between stops is capped separately. On foot it is your radius or a mile, whichever is smaller. Driving, it is your radius — you already accepted that distance when you set it, and the planner does not get to quietly double it.

The assumption is a default, not a verdict. Choosing to walk a wider search pulls every hop back to a mile; the venues stay where they were.

Why the walk is worth protecting

Getting back in a car after dinner ends an evening’s momentum. You park again, you navigate again, and the conversation stops while somebody drives. Ten minutes on foot does the opposite: it is the part of the night where people actually talk, and it is free.

A planner that picks each stop purely on quality will happily send you across town between courses. You end up with three excellent places and an evening that feels like admin. The cap costs some score on paper and buys back the thing you were trying to have.

How to draw the same circle by hand

1. Pick the anchor first — usually dinner — on quality alone, anywhere you are willing to travel to.
2. Then draw a ten minute walk around it, about a mile, and choose the second stop only from inside that circle. This is the step people skip.
3. Park once. If the whole night is walkable from one spot, parking stops being a decision you have to make twice.