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Distance between Tampa and Lakeland

Driving non-stop from Tampa to Lakeland

How far is Lakeland from Tampa? Here's the quick answer if you make this quick drive without any stops. Of course, traffic is going to make a big difference so make sure you check that before leaving.

Nonstop drive: 36 miles or 58 km

Driving time: 40 minutes

Even on a short drive, it might be more interesting to stop along the way and explore the local area. You can scroll down to see the calculation if you drive with stops.


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Flying non-stop from Tampa to Lakeland

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Tampa, Florida and Lakeland, Florida. 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: 32 miles or 51 km

Flight time: 34 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 4 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 1/1th 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.





Tampa to Lakeland road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Lakeland, 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: 1 hour on the road


Itinerary

Start in Tampa.

Drive for about 14 minutes, then stop at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 14 minutes then stop in Seffner and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 6 minutes then stop in Dover (Florida) and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 9 minutes then stop at Parkesdale Farm Market and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 15 minutes then stop at Fairfield Inn & Suites Lakeland Plant City and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 15 minutes then stop in Lakeland and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 5 minutes and arrive in Lakeland.


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:





Tampa to Lakeland 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: Tampa International Airport (TPA)

Arrival airport: Orlando International Airport (MCO)

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: 15 minutes

Getting to your destination: 142 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from TPA connecting through ORD and arriving at MCO flying on Frontier 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: 2 hours, 45 minutes

Connecting airport: Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)

Connection flight time: 2 hours, 32 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Tampa to Lakeland 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: 12 hours


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





Plan a trip to Lakeland

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Lakeland, Florida. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Lakeland. Click the button below to explore Lakeland 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 Lakeland to Tampa, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

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





At a Glance
without making any stops
total driving distance is 36 miles
driving time of 40 minutes
flight distance is 32 miles
flight time of 34 minutes
83 Tampa travel answers








   
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