Trippy
 
  Questions  
Drive      Fly      Stay      Login    Signup

Distance between San Diego and Las Vegas

Driving non-stop from San Diego to Las Vegas

How far is Las Vegas from San Diego? Here's the quick answer if you are able to make this entire trip by car without stopping.

Nonstop drive: 332 miles or 534 km

Driving time: 4 hours, 55 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 San Diego to Las Vegas

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between San Diego, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. 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: 265 miles or 426 km

Flight time: 52 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 67 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.3x of the flight distance.

Your plane flies much faster than a car, so the flight time is about 1/4th 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.





San Diego to Las Vegas road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Las Vegas, and you want to stop along the way to rest. If it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting stops along the way, eat at great restaurants, and maybe even 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 more than one day.

Road trip: 2 days of driving

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

Travel time: 7.5 hours on the road with 1 overnight


Itinerary

Start in San Diego.

Drive for about 36 minutes, then stop in Carlsbad (California) and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 49 minutes then stop in Temecula and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 45 minutes then stop in Riverside (California) and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 49 minutes then stop at Bear Valley Road. Stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 50 minutes, then stop in Barstow and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 50 minutes then stop at Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 1.5 hours then stop at Mojave Desert and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 1 hour then stop at Sky Combat Ace and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 23 minutes and arrive in Las Vegas.


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:





San Diego to Las Vegas 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 Diego International Airport (SAN)

Arrival airport: McCarran International Airport (LAS)

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: 6 minutes

Getting to your destination: 19 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from SAN connecting through PDX and arriving at LAS flying on Alaska 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, 28 minutes

Connecting airport: Portland International Airport (PDX)

Connection flight time: 2 hours, 4 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from San Diego to Las Vegas 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: 9 hours


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





Plan a trip to Las Vegas

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Las Vegas. Trippy has an entire Q&A community where you can post questions and get answers from expert travelers or locals who know the area. For instance, you might be interested in the answers to this question: 10 day itinerary from Vegas and back. If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out Bellagio Hotel. A great place to eat might be Giada. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Las Vegas like Downtown Container Park. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Las Vegas like Best new restaurants in Vegas?. Click the button below to explore Las Vegas 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 Las Vegas to San Diego, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

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





At a Glance
without making any stops
total driving distance is 332 miles
driving time of 4 hours, 55 minutes
flight distance is 265 miles
flight time of 52 minutes
288 San Diego travel answers
379 Las Vegas travel answers








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

Login   ·   About   ·   FAQ   ·   Contact   ·   Privacy   ·   Terms