Search Routes (AI)

Find sailing passages between destinations with distance, difficulty, and ratings

GET/ai/routes

Search point-to-point sailing passages with distance, difficulty, and community ratings. Distances are in nautical miles. Only passages whose both endpoints are published locations are returned.

Written passages exist only for some pairs of places, so an empty result does not mean the trip can't be sailed. For "where can I sail from X" based on where boats were actually recorded going, use /ai/locations?from= instead.

Authentication

No authentication required. Sending your key is optional -- see the overview. Shares the /api/ai/* rate limit of 60 requests per 10 minutes (30 for Custom GPT clients).

Query Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`from`	string	No	Place name, resolved by the same resolver as boat search (marina, city, island, sailing region or country -- a trailing country or region is understood, as in `Nydri, Greece`). It resolves to every location of that place, so a name shared by a town and its marina finds the passages written against either, and the response says which place it landed on in `location_matched`. A name that resolves to nothing returns an empty list with `from_unresolved` -- never passages from somewhere else.
`location_id`	integer	No	Exact location ID. Finds passages starting or ending at this location. Takes precedence over `from`. A value that is not a positive integer returns an empty list with `location_unresolved`.
`q`	string	No	Free-text match against the passage title.
`difficulty`	string	No	Filter by difficulty: `easy`, `moderate`, `challenging`
`limit`	integer	No	Max results (default: 5, max: 20)

Request

# Passages from Marina Sivota (Lefkada)
curl "https://charter.boats/api/ai/routes?from=Marina%20Sivota&limit=2"
 
# The same, by location id
curl "https://charter.boats/api/ai/routes?location_id=21099&limit=2"

from and location_id filter passages that start or end at the place.

Response

{
  "location_matched": { "id": "21099", "name": "Ionian Islands", "country": "Greece" },
  "routes": [
    {
      "id": "d138aeae-bfc2-482a-a803-c070cb47c548",
      "title": "Sivota to Kolpiskos Mandras",
      "from": "Lefkas, Marina Sivota, Greece",
      "to": "Kolpiskos Mandras, Greece",
      "distance_nm": 10,
      "estimated_hours": 1.7,
      "difficulty": null,
      "rating": null,
      "variant_count": 0,
      "description": null,
      "url": "https://charter.boats/routes/sivota-to-kolpiskos-mandras"
    },
    {
      "id": "af500dca-c807-4033-b793-c8b6368c13d1",
      "title": "Sivota to Bay Roygas",
      "from": "Lefkas, Marina Sivota, Greece",
      "to": "Bay Roygas, Greece",
      "distance_nm": 10,
      "estimated_hours": 1.7,
      "difficulty": null,
      "rating": null,
      "variant_count": 0,
      "description": null,
      "url": "https://charter.boats/routes/sivota-to-bay-roygas"
    }
  ]
}

difficulty, rating, and description are frequently null — they are only populated for curated routes.

Response Fields

Field	Type	Description
`location_matched`	object	Present when you sent `from`: the place it resolved to (`id`, `name`, `country`). A sailing-region match reports `id` as `"region:<Name>"`.
`routes`	array	Matching passages sorted by rating
`routes[].id`	string	Route UUID
`routes[].title`	string	Route title
`routes[].from`	string	Departure location (name, country)
`routes[].to`	string	Arrival location (name, country)
`routes[].distance_nm`	number\|null	Distance in nautical miles
`routes[].estimated_hours`	number\|null	`distance_nm` at 6 knots, rounded to a tenth -- the same cruising speed every AI endpoint uses
`routes[].difficulty`	string\|null	Difficulty level
`routes[].rating`	number\|null	Average community rating
`routes[].variant_count`	integer\|null	Number of route variants (direct, scenic, etc.)
`routes[].description`	string\|null	Route description
`routes[].url`	string	Link to the passage page on charter.boats
`no_results`	object	Present only when `routes` is empty. See Empty results.
`from_unresolved`	string	Present when `from` matched no place we hold: echoes the term. `routes` is then empty and no wider search was run.
`location_unresolved`	string	Present when `location_id` was not a location id: echoes the value.
`note`	string	Present only when `routes` is empty. One-sentence rendering of `no_results`.

Empty results

An empty routes array always comes with the shared zero-results block: searched names the filters as resolved -- the place we landed on, not the term you sent -- why explains that passages are only written up for some pairs, and try_next points at the observed-passage search on /ai/locations, plus which of your filters to drop.

A from that resolves to nothing is a different answer, and says so under from_unresolved: no passage search is run at all, rather than one without the place.

{
  "routes": [],
  "no_results": {
    "searched": "difficulty easy",
    "why": "We publish written passages only for pairs that have one, so this returns nothing even when both places exist and boats sail between them.",
    "try_next": [
      "search_locations with `from`=<location id> — where boats were actually recorded sailing from there",
      "drop `difficulty`"
    ]
  },
  "note": "Nothing matched difficulty easy. We publish written passages only for pairs that have one, so this returns nothing even when both places exist and boats sail between them. Try: search_locations with `from`=<location id> — where boats were actually recorded sailing from there; drop `difficulty`."
}