3rd July 2026
Imagine you've booked a café for lunch in Wick. Google says it's "in Wick", so you allow half an hour before your next destination.
You arrive in Wick, drive around the town centre... and discover the café isn't there at all.
Instead, it's twelve miles away down a country road in a small village.
The problem isn't that Google is necessarily wrong. It's that Google is often using the UK's postal address system, and in rural Britain, postal geography and actual geography are two very different things.
The Postal Town Isn't Always the Town
One of the quirks of the British postal system is the idea of the postal town.
When the Royal Mail developed its addressing system, its purpose was simple: deliver letters efficiently. The address did not have to describe precisely where a property was located; it only needed enough information to ensure the post reached the correct delivery office.
That worked perfectly for generations of postal workers.
But in the age of sat-navs, smartphones and online maps, it can create confusion.
A business may have an address that reads:
Somewhere Cottage
Wick
Caithness
KW1...
Most people naturally assume that means the business is in Wick.
In reality, it could be ten, fifteen or even twenty miles from the town centre.
"Wick" is simply the postal town.
A Common Surprise for Visitors
This catches out tourists every summer.
Someone searching online for:
restaurants in Wick
accommodation in Wick
campsites in Wick
gift shops in Wick
visitor attractions in Wick
may be shown businesses whose postal address includes "Wick" but which are actually located in villages such as Keiss, Watten, Reiss, Bower, Lybster or elsewhere across eastern Caithness.
The same happens around Thurso, Inverness, Fort William, Oban and many other rural communities throughout the UK.
For local people this isn't a problem. They know where these places are.
Visitors often don't.
Why Google Isn't Really to Blame
Google collects information from thousands of different sources:
business websites
online directories
Companies House records
customer submissions
mapping databases
publicly available address records
If every one of those says a business is in "Wick", Google's systems naturally associate that business with Wick.
The difficulty is that the postal address is only part of the story.
Without carefully checking the map, visitors may assume everything listed under "Wick" is within walking distance of the town centre.
Distances Feel Different in the Highlands
In a city, ten miles might mean a twenty-minute drive along dual carriageways.
In Caithness, those same ten miles could involve:
narrow rural roads
tractors during harvest
livestock crossings
single-track sections
slower speed limits
spectacular scenery that encourages stopping for photographs.
A journey that looks insignificant on a map can take much longer than visitors expect.
That matters if you've booked accommodation, reserved a restaurant, or are trying to catch a ferry.
It's Not Just About Tourism
The same issue affects local services.
People searching online for:
pharmacies
garages
electric vehicle charging points
cafés
hotels
holiday cottages
can easily underestimate travelling times.
Businesses themselves sometimes receive phone calls from customers saying:
"I'm in Wick. Where exactly are you?"
The answer is often: "We're actually several miles outside the town."
How Visitors Can Avoid the Trap
Fortunately, avoiding the problem is simple.
Before travelling:
Check the map rather than relying solely on the written address.
Look at the estimated driving time instead of the mileage.
Zoom in to see the exact location.
Read recent customer reviews, which often mention how easy a place is to find.
If in doubt, telephone ahead.
A few minutes of planning can save an hour of unnecessary driving.
A Quirk Worth Understanding
This isn't a fault with Google, nor is it a flaw in the postal system.
It is simply the result of a postal network designed decades before satellite navigation became part of everyday life.
For rural communities, postal towns remain an efficient way of sorting mail.
For visitors, however, they can create a false impression of geography.
As more people rely entirely on online searches to plan their journeys, understanding this small quirk of the British addressing system becomes increasingly important.
So next time you search for somewhere "in Wick", "near Thurso" or "around Inverness", take a moment to check the map.
You may discover that your destination is not where you expected but in the Highlands, that's often part of the adventure.