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Distance between Detroit and Cleveland

Driving non-stop from Detroit to Cleveland

How far is Cleveland from Detroit? Here's the quick answer if you drive this relatively short distance without making any stops.

Nonstop drive: 169 miles or 272 km

Driving time: 2 hours, 41 minutes

Even though you can drive this distance straight through, it might be more interesting to stop along the way. You can scroll down to calculate how many hours it would take if you drive with stops.


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Flying non-stop from Detroit to Cleveland

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or "as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterative Vincenty formula.

Flight distance: 90 miles or 145 km

Flight time: 23 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 79 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.9x of the flight distance.

Your plane flies much faster than a car, so the flight time is about 1/3th of the time it would take to drive.

This is a relatively short flight in a private plane, but you might be planning to book a commercial flight. In that case, your travel time would really need to include how many minutes to get to your local airport, wait for security, board and taxi on the runway, land at the other airport, and get to your destination. Scroll down to see a more realistic calculation that takes into account all these factors to get a more accurate estimate of your actual flight time.





Detroit to Cleveland road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Cleveland, and you want to stop on the way to explore. If it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting places along the way, or maybe eat at a great restaurant. That's what Trippy is perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.

Road trip: 1 day of driving

With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimate your total travel time for this trip.

Travel time: 3.5 hours on the road


Itinerary

Start in Detroit.

Drive for about 1 hour, then stop at Star Diner and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 54 minutes then stop in Port Clinton and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 60 minutes then stop in Elyria and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 37 minutes and arrive in Cleveland.


To see all the details on this itinerary, including recommended restaurants, hotels, and things to do along the way, check out the full road trip planner:





Detroit to Cleveland airports and flights

In the quick calculation above, we assumed you had a private plane and just wanted to know the time in the air from city to city. But for most of us, we're going to be flying on a commercial airline (whether it's first class or coach). So that means we really need to account for all the extra travel time getting to the airport, waiting for our flight, and making it to the destination.

To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we've put together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventually you'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airports and flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected to give you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.

Departure airport: Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)

Arrival airport: Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)

With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to and from the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.

Getting to the airport: 54 minutes

Getting to your destination: 31 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from DTW connecting through LAS and arriving at CLE flying on Spirit Airlines. We can figure out how long it would take to fly including take-off and landing, time to taxi on the runways, and an average layover time of about 2 hours.

Initial flight time: 4 hours, 21 minutes

Connecting airport: McCarran International Airport (LAS)

Connection flight time: 3 hours, 55 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Detroit to Cleveland including time spent getting to and from the airports, roughly 2 hours at the departure airport for TSA security lines and waiting at the gate, plus the connecting flight with a 2-hour layover.

Total travel time: 14 hours


To see the details on this flight plan, including recommended airports, airline, and route, check out the flight planner:





Plan a trip to Cleveland

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Cleveland, Ohio. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Cleveland. If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out The Cleveland Hostel. A great place to eat might be Lola. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Cleveland like Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Cleveland like What's the best neighborhood in Cleveland for a first time visitor?. Click the button below to explore Cleveland in detail.





How far is it the other way?

The distance is the same either way if you're flying a straight line (or driving the same roads back and forth). But for a real trip, there can be plenty of differences so go ahead and check the reverse directions to get the distance from Cleveland to Detroit, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

If you happen to know Detroit, don't forget to help other travelers and answer some questions about Detroit!





At a Glance
without making any stops
total driving distance is 169 miles
driving time of 2 hours, 41 minutes
flight distance is 90 miles
flight time of 23 minutes
42 Detroit travel answers
83 Cleveland travel answers








   
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