How far is San Jose from San Rafael? Here's the quick answer if you drive this relatively short distance without making any stops.
Nonstop drive: 63 miles or 101 km
Driving time: 1 hour, 9 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 San Rafael, California and San Jose, 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: 56 miles or 91 km
Flight time: 37 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 7 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 1/2th 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 San Jose, 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 San Rafael.
Drive for about 24 minutes, then stop in Albany (California) and stay for about 1 hour.
Next, drive for another 14 minutes then stop in Oakland and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 26 minutes then stop in Hayward and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 19 minutes then stop in Fremont (California) and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 12 minutes then stop at Mission Peak Regional Preserve and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 23 minutes then stop at Downtown San Jose and stay for 1 hour.
Finally, drive for about 5 minutes and arrive in San Jose.
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 San Jose, California. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in San Jose. Trippy members can suggest things to do in San Jose like The Tech Museum of Innovation. Check out some of the questions people have asked about San Jose like What's the best neighborhood in San Jose for a first time visitor?. Click the button below to explore San Jose 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 San Jose to San Rafael, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.
If you happen to know San Rafael, don't forget to help other travelers and answer some questions about San Rafael!
More info on this route:
drive from San Rafael to San Jose
road conditions
alternate routes
Google driving directions