Flying non-stop from New York City to Los Angeles
Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in thefastest possible straight line between New York, New York andLos Angeles, California. Because of the curvature of the Earth, theshortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or"as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterativeVincenty formula. For a long distance, this appears as a curve on the map, and this is often the route that commercial airlines will take so it's a good estimate of the frequent flyer miles you'll accumulate as well.
Flight distance: 2,451 miles or 3944 km
Flight time: 5 hours, 23 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 338 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 1/7th of the time it would take to drive.
This is a fairly long flight, so unless you have a Gulfstream G650 or your own Boeing or Airbus, you might be booking a commercial flight. In that case, your travel time would really need toinclude how many minutes to get to your local airport, waitfor security, board and taxi on the runway, land at the otherairport, and get to your destination. Scroll down to see a more realistic calculation that takesinto account all these factors to get a more accurate estimateof your actual flight time.
New York City to Los Angeles road trip
Realistically, you're not going to want to drive without stopping all the way from New York City to Los Angeles, especially if you're the main driver. So let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Los Angeles, 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: 6 days of driving
With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimateyour total travel time for this trip.
Travel time: 46 hours on the road with 5 overnights
Itinerary
Start in New York City.
Drive for about 8 hours, then stop in Cleveland and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 5 hours, then stop in Chicago and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 5 hours, then stop in Des Moines and stay for about 1 hour.Next, drive for another 5.5 hours then stop at Great Platte River Road Archway. Stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 6.5 hours, then stop in Denver and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 5.5 hours, then stop in Moab and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 6.5 hours, then stop in Las Vegas and stay for about 4 hours.
Finally, drive for about 4 hours and arrive in Los Angeles.
To see all the details on this itinerary, includingrecommended restaurants, hotels, and things to do alongthe way, check out the full road trip planner:
New York City to Los Angeles airports and flights
In the quick calculation above, we assumed you had a privateplane 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 needto 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'veput together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventuallyyou'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airportsand flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected togive you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.
Departure airport: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Arrival airport: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to andfrom the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.
Getting to the airport: 38 minutes
Getting to your destination: 36 minutes
Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from JFK to LAX on American Airlines and figure out how long it would take to fly includingtake-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.
Commercial flight time: 5 hours, 58 minutes
So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time fromNew York City to Los Angeles including time spent getting to/fromthe airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSAsecurity lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.
Total travel time: 9 hours
To see the details on this flight plan, includingrecommended airports, airline, and route, check outthe flight planner:
Plan a trip to Los Angeles
Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Los Angeles, California. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Los Angeles, or find out how many days in Los Angeles to visit. 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: . If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out Shutters On the Beach. A great place to eat might be Gjelina. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Los Angeles like Santa Monica Pier. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Los Angeles like Where are the top 5 places to see a celebrity in L.A.?. Click the button below to explore Los Angeles 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 differencesso go ahead and check the reverse directions to get thedistance from Los Angeles to New York City, or go to the main pageto calculate the distance between cities.
If you happen to know New York City, don't forget to help othertravelers and answer some questions about New York City!
