Open any map app and most of the options are variations on the same idea. Fastest route. Fastest without tolls. Fastest without motorways. The settings change, but the basic goal stays the same: get you to your destination as quickly as possible.
That makes sense for a lot of journeys. If you are commuting, catching a flight or running late for an appointment, speed matters. But not every drive is like that. Sometimes you have time. Sometimes you are driving somewhere for the day and would rather take a nicer road. Sometimes twenty extra minutes is completely fine if the journey itself is better. Most navigation apps are not really designed around that idea.
When the fastest route is not the nicest route
Routing software is very good at comparing distance, traffic and estimated journey time. What it is less good at understanding is what a road is actually like to drive.
A narrow country lane might look perfectly reasonable in the data. It connects two places, cars can technically use it, and it may shave a few minutes off the journey. In reality, it might be single track, poorly surfaced and full of blind bends.
Most drivers have probably had some version of this experience. You follow the route because the app says it is quicker, then a few minutes later you are wondering why you are squeezing past hedges on a road you would never have chosen yourself. The route may technically be faster. That does not necessarily make it better.
There are more extreme examples too, such as lorries ending up on roads that are clearly unsuitable for large vehicles. Those stories usually get treated as funny sat-nav mistakes, but they highlight a broader limitation.
A route can make perfect sense in the data and still feel like the wrong choice when you are actually driving it.
We stopped paying attention to the route
Before turn-by-turn navigation, travelling somewhere unfamiliar took more effort. You looked at a map. You followed signs. You remembered town names. You noticed landmarks. You also made more decisions yourself — you might choose one road because it looked more interesting, or take a slightly longer route because it passed through somewhere you wanted to see.
That was less efficient, of course. Sat-nav solved a real problem, and I would not want to go back to trying to read a road atlas while driving. But something else changed at the same time: it became possible to drive for an hour, arrive at your destination and have very little idea where you had actually been. You simply followed the instructions.
For everyday journeys, that is often exactly what you want. But on a weekend drive or a day out, it can make the journey feel strangely forgettable. You saw roads, villages and countryside, but you did not really choose any of them.
The fastest road is not always the best road
A motorway and a B-road are not really competing versions of the same thing. They serve different purposes. The motorway is brilliant when you need to cover distance quickly. The B-road might take longer, but it could run through countryside, follow the coast, climb over a hill or pass through towns you would otherwise never see. One is about getting somewhere. The other can be part of the day itself.
The problem is that most routing software has a very clear way of measuring the first one and almost no way of measuring the second. Journey time is easy to calculate. How enjoyable a road is, how good the views are, whether it feels relaxing to drive, or whether you might actually want to stop somewhere along the way is much harder to put into a number. So those things usually disappear from the decision.
Sometimes you just want the nice way
There are plenty of times when I want Google Maps or Waze to give me the quickest route and get on with it. But there are also journeys where I would happily trade fifteen or twenty minutes for a better drive.
That is the idea behind brieflylost
It is not trying to replace normal navigation or compete on journey time. It is for the occasions when the journey matters too. You tell it where you are going in plain English, and it looks for a route using roads that are more interesting to drive — B-roads, coastal stretches, countryside routes and scenic passes. See how that stacks up against the usual apps in brieflylost vs Google Maps, Waze and the rest.
The idea is simple. Instead of only asking, "What is the fastest way there?", you can also ask, "What is the nicest way there?" It is closer to the kind of advice you might get from someone who knows the area well. You can take the main road and save fifteen minutes. Or, if you have the time, there is a much nicer way. Sometimes that is exactly the route you want.
Frequently asked questions
Is it bad to use sat-nav for everyday driving?
No. For commuting, appointments and other journeys where timing matters, turn-by-turn navigation is extremely useful. The limitation is simply that most navigation apps are designed primarily around speed and efficiency.
Why do navigation apps sometimes suggest strange roads?
Routing software works from map data, road classifications, estimated speeds, traffic and other signals. A road can be technically suitable for driving while still being narrow, awkward or unpleasant in practice.
What is the alternative to always taking the fastest route?
You can plan around the quality of the journey instead. That might mean choosing B-roads, coastal roads, scenic routes or roads through interesting towns and countryside. Apps such as brieflylost are designed specifically around that kind of journey.
Does taking the scenic route always add a lot of time?
Not necessarily. Sometimes the difference is only ten or twenty minutes. The point is not to make every journey longer. It is to give yourself the choice when a slightly longer route might actually be more enjoyable.
Get briefly lost, on purpose
brieflylost finds the scenic way round, for the journeys where getting there is only part of the day. Free to start on iOS and Android.