How far is Oakland from Santa Cruz? Here's the quick answer if you drive this relatively short distance without making any stops.
Nonstop drive: 72 miles or 116 km
Driving time: 1 hour, 19 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.
Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Santa Cruz, California and Oakland, California. 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: 59 miles or 95 km
Flight time: 17 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 13 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.2x 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.
Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Oakland, 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: 2 hours on the road
Itinerary
Start in Santa Cruz.
Drive for about 26 minutes, then stop at Lexington Reservoir and stay for about 1 hour.
Next, drive for another 22 minutes then stop in San Jose and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 22 minutes then stop at Mission Peak Regional Preserve and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 12 minutes then stop in Fremont (California) and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 20 minutes then stop at Japanese Gardens and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 16 minutes then stop at O.co Coliseum and stay for 1 hour.
Finally, drive for about 12 minutes and arrive in Oakland.
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:
Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Oakland, California. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Oakland. A great place to eat might be Chez Panisse. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Oakland like Lake Merritt. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Oakland like Best free things to do in Oakland?. Click the button below to explore Oakland in detail.
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 Oakland to Santa Cruz, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.
If you happen to know Santa Cruz, don't forget to help other travelers and answer some questions about Santa Cruz!