How WhereTo works

In short: first we filter by your hard limits, then we pick what suits both of you — fair to each of you, not on average.

0. Place, activity, event

A place (a theatre, a park) isn't a plan. We only suggest things you can actually do: an activity offered there (a dinner, a visit, an hour of swimming) at a time when the place is open according to its published hours, or an event with a date and time, read from the organizer's page. A theatre with no announced show appears in Explore, but not as a plan for tonight.

How sure we are

• Hours verified — the hours come from the official, current website. That doesn't mean guaranteed entry (capacity, private events, unannounced closures).
• Event announced by the organizer · seats not confirmed — the date and time are on the organizer's page; we don't know how many seats are left.
• Booking needed · availability not confirmed — the hours are known, but you need to book; we can't see free spots.
• Budget: "Fits the budget" only when the highest verified price is under your budget. If we only know a "from" price, or no price is published, we say "Budget not confirmed".
• Hours not published — there are no current published hours (or only archived ones, shown with the archive date). We don't suggest such places for "now", with one proportionate exception: a park or a public trail in the daytime (08:00–20:00), marked "public space · hours not published". We assume neither permanent access nor closure.

Times are ranges, not exact minutes

Until we have real routing, travel time is a cautious estimate from the straight-line distance (a range, e.g. "~10–20 min"), and for feasibility we use the pessimistic end. Times for activities without a fixed start are "around" and rounded to the quarter hour. For shows we plan to arrive 25 minutes early (15 for cinema, 10 for club concerts), and between the stops of a plan we leave at least 10 extra minutes; plans that are too tight are rejected.

1. Hard limits come first

Budget, time window, distance, things one of you never wants, accessibility and dietary restrictions rule an option out only when the information is known. When we don't know it (e.g. the hours aren't published), we don't hide the option, but we clearly say "check with the venue".

2. The fit for two

We work out how well each option suits each of you (tastes, mood, energy, what you want to try). The shared score is the geometric mean of the two: an option one of you loves and the other hates can't beat one you both like moderately. If an option is a very poor fit for one of you (under 30%, or a category they dislike, under 25%), we drop it; we only include it if you choose "Accept a compromise". We don't show compatibility percentages — they aren't calibrated — but concrete reasons.

What else counts: novelty, quality (editorial rating), the weather (for outdoor activities), how soon you can start and how fresh the information is. We then pick 3 options that differ from each other and keep alternatives for each. The explanations are generated from these calculations — no artificial intelligence "inventing" reasons. Formula version: wt-score-0.4.1.

The duration, energy and "mood" linked to a category (e.g. a museum = culture, conversation, low energy) are our editorial classification, not information about a specific place. Likewise, when the hours of a museum, gallery or workshop aren't confirmed and you're searching late in the evening, we mark it "usually closed at this hour" and move it down the list.

3. Where the data comes from

• Places: checked editorially on each place's official website. For each one we keep: the source, the verification date, the right of use and the status (verified / possibly outdated / unavailable). After 60 days without a re-check, a place is shown as "possibly outdated".
• Events: only from sources that allow us (organizers, partners). We don't copy other platforms' content.
• Weather: MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute), CC BY 4.0 licence. The forecast gives amounts of precipitation, not probabilities: we treat any hour with rain in the window as a risk.
• Distances: estimates (straight line × 1.3, average speed per mode of transport). When we don't have a place's exact coordinates, we estimate from the centre of its area and say so.
• Prices and availability: never invented. We show a price only if we read it on the official page (with a link); otherwise, "check with the venue".

4. Recommendations vs. promotion

Recommendations are organic. If we ever have paid placements, they will be separate and clearly labelled "Promoted" — they don't affect the order of the 3 options.

Technical contact

Requests our server makes to other services (the MET Norway forecast, link checks) identify themselves with the app's name and the address of this page, with no data about you. For a problem with a place's data, use "Report wrong information" on the place's page; for anything else, write to contact@purceas.com.

5. Privacy

• Accounts are optional. Without one, your preferences stay on your phone; with one, they sync across your devices (details in Privacy).
• Your location (if you share it) is rounded to ~100 m, used once for the calculation and not saved.
• On the server: saved plans (30 days), invitations (7 days) and usage statistics with no personal identifier (no external tracking tools).
• What we "learn" (from the options you reject and the notes after outings) stays on your phone (and in your account, if you have one), separately for each of you, with the reason for each adjustment; you can reset it from Preferences.
• Deleting: Preferences → Delete everything; with an account, Settings → Delete account.

All the details: Privacy · Cookies · Terms · Sources and licences.