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Distance between Santa Cruz and Pismo Beach (California)

Driving non-stop from Santa Cruz to Pismo Beach (California)

How far is Pismo Beach (California) from Santa Cruz? Here's the quick answer if you drive this relatively short distance without making any stops.

Nonstop drive: 179 miles or 288 km

Driving time: 2 hours, 48 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 Santa Cruz to Pismo Beach (California)

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Santa Cruz, California and Pismo Beach, 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: 148 miles or 239 km

Flight time: 37 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 31 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. 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.





Santa Cruz to Pismo Beach (California) road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Pismo Beach (California), 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: 5 hours on the road


Itinerary

Start in Santa Cruz.

Drive for about 53 minutes, then stop in Carmel By the Sea and stay for about 1.5 hours. Next, drive for another 1.5 hours then stop at Pinnacles National Park and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 1.5 hours then stop in Paso Robles and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 37 minutes then stop in Morro Bay and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 28 minutes and arrive in Pismo Beach (California).


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:





Santa Cruz to Pismo Beach (California) 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: San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

Arrival airport: San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport (SBP)

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: 145 minutes

Getting to your destination: 19 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from SFO to SBP on United Airlines and figure out how long it would take to fly including take-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.

Commercial flight time: 52 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Santa Cruz to Pismo Beach (California) including time spent getting to/from the airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSA security lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.

Total travel time: 6 hours


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





Plan a trip to Pismo Beach (California)

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Pismo Beach, California. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Pismo Beach (California). If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort. A great place to eat might be Splash Cafe. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Pismo Beach (California) like Laetitia Vineyard & Winery. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Pismo Beach (California) like Places to visit / Things to see. Click the button below to explore Pismo Beach (California) 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 Pismo Beach (California) 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!





At a Glance
without making any stops
total driving distance is 179 miles
driving time of 2 hours, 48 minutes
flight distance is 148 miles
flight time of 37 minutes
87 Santa Cruz travel answers
50 Pismo Beach (California) travel answers








   
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