Trippy
 
  Questions  
Drive      Fly      Stay      Login    Signup

Distance between Santa Monica and Oakland

Driving non-stop from Santa Monica to Oakland

How far is Oakland from Santa Monica? Here's the quick answer if you are able to make this entire trip by car without stopping.

Nonstop drive: 371 miles or 597 km

Driving time: 5 hours, 47 minutes

Realistically, you'll probably want to add a buffer for rest stops, gas, or food along the way. To get a better idea of how long this trip would really be, scroll down to calculate how many hours it would take if you drive with stops.


From:
To:
Depart:
Return:
Get:    
  Change your route
From:
To:
 


Flying non-stop from Santa Monica to Oakland

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Santa Monica, 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: 336 miles or 541 km

Flight time: 55 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 35 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.1x of the flight distance.

Your plane flies much faster than a car, so the flight time is about 1/5th 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 Monica to Oakland road trip

Realistically, you're not going to want to drive without stopping all the way from Santa Monica to Oakland, especially if you're the main driver. So let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Oakland, and you need to stop along the way to rest. Plus if it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting stops along the way, eat at great restaurants, and find a hotel to stay overnight. That's what Trippy is perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.

Based on the length of this trip, we think you could spread out this fun road trip over a number of days.

Road trip: 3 days of driving

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

Travel time: 27 hours on the road with 2 overnights


Itinerary

Start in Santa Monica.

Drive for about 21 hours, then stop in Grapevine and stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 1 hour, then stop in Lost Hills and stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 1 hour, then stop at Harris Ranch Inn & Restaurant and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 1.5 hours then stop at Pea Soup Andersen's and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 53 minutes then stop in Modesto and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 54 minutes then stop in Livermore and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 39 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:





Santa Monica to Oakland 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: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

Arrival airport: San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

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: 22 minutes

Getting to your destination: 42 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from LAX to SFO on Alaska 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: 1 hour, 13 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Santa Monica to Oakland 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: 4 hours


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





Plan a trip to Oakland

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.





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 Oakland to Santa Monica, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

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





At a Glance
without making any stops
total driving distance is 371 miles
driving time of 5 hours, 47 minutes
flight distance is 336 miles
flight time of 55 minutes
229 Santa Monica travel answers
62 Oakland travel answers








   
Questions   ·   Destinations   ·   Drive   ·   Fly   ·   Airports   ·   Stay   ·   Search

Login   ·   About   ·   FAQ   ·   Contact   ·   Privacy   ·   Terms