How far is it from Napa CA to San Diego CA?

The distance from Napa, California to San Diego, California is:

520 miles / 837 km driving481 miles / 774 km flying

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For a quick answer, use MileageCalc.com to get the Napa to San Diego distance.

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Distance from Napa, CA to San Diego, CA

The total driving distance from Napa, CA to San Diego, CA is 520 miles or 837 kilometers.

The total straight line flight distance from Napa, CA to San Diego, CA is 481 miles.

This is equivalent to 774 kilometers or 418 nautical miles.

Your trip begins in Napa, California. It ends in San Diego, California.

Your flight direction from Napa, CA to San Diego, CA is Southeast (142 degrees from North).

The distance calculator helps you figure out how far it is to get from Napa, CA to San Diego, CA. It does this by computing the straight line flying distance ("as the crow flies") and the driving distance if the route is drivable. It uses all this data to compute the total travel mileage.

Distance calculator

Travelmath helps you find distances based on actual road trip directions, or the straight line flight distance. You can get the distance between cities, airports, states, countries, or zip codes to figure out the best route to travel to your destination. Compare the results to the straight line distance to determine whether it's better to drive or fly. The database uses the latitude and longitude of each location to calculate distance using the great circle distance formula. The calculation is done using the Vincenty algorithm and the WGS84 ellipsoid model of the Earth, which is the same one used by most GPS receivers. This gives you the flying distance "as the crow flies." Find your flight distances quickly to estimate the number of frequent flyer miles you'll accumulate. Or ask how far is it between cities to solve your homework problems. You can lookup U.S. cities, or expand your search to get the world distance for international trips. You can also print out pages with a travel map.

The driving distance from San Diego, California to Napa Valley is:

521 miles / 838 km

Map of driving directions from San Diego, CA to Napa Valley

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The total driving distance from San Diego, CA to Napa Valley is 521 miles or 838 kilometers.

Your trip begins in San Diego, California. It ends in Napa Valley, California.

If you are planning a road trip, you might also want to calculate the total driving time from San Diego, CA to Napa Valley so you can see when you'll arrive at your destination.

You can also calculate the cost of driving from San Diego, CA to Napa Valley based on current local fuel prices and an estimate of your car's best gas mileage.

Since this is a long drive, you might want to stop halfway and stay overnight in a hotel. You can find the city that is halfway between San Diego, CA and Napa Valley.

Planning to fly a plane instead? You might be more interested in calculating the straight line distance to fly from San Diego, CA to Napa Valley.

Driving distance calculator

Travelmath helps you find driving distances based on actual directions for your road trip. You can get the distance between cities, airports, states, countries, or zip codes to figure out the best route to travel to your destination. Combine this information with the fuel cost tool to find out how much it will cost you to drive the distance, or compare the results to the straight line distance to determine whether it's better to drive or fly. You can print out pages with a travel map.

Driving non-stop from San Diego to Napa

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

Nonstop drive: 520 miles or 837 km

Driving time: 7 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.

Flying non-stop from San Diego to Napa

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between San Diego, California and Napa, 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: 481 miles or 774 km

Flight time: 1 hour, 12 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 39 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.

San Diego to Napa road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Napa, 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: 10 hours on the road with 1 overnight

Itinerary

Start in San Diego.

Drive for about 1.5 hours, then stop in Laguna Beach and stay for about 1.5 hours. Next, drive for another 1 hour then stop in Los Angeles and stay for 4 hours. Drive for 2 hours then stop in Bakersfield. Stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 2 hours, then stop at Harris Ranch Inn & Restaurant and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 1.5 hours then stop in Santa Nella (California) and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 1.5 hours then stop in Oakland and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 50 minutes and arrive in Napa.

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 Napa 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: 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: 7 minutes

Getting to your destination: 141 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from SAN 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, 30 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from San Diego to Napa 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: 6 hours

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

Plan a trip to Napa

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Napa, California. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Napa. If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out Bardessono. A great place to eat might be ad hoc. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Napa like Domaine Carneros. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Napa like Other foodie things to do besides wine tasting. Click the button below to explore Napa 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 Napa 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!

Can you take the train from San Diego to Napa Valley?

Trip Summary There are 2 daily trains from San Diego to Napa. Traveling by train from San Diego to Napa usually takes around 18 hours and 7 minutes, but the fastest Amtrak train can make the trip in 14 hours and 5 minutes.

What airport do you fly into to go to Napa Valley?

Napa County Airport is the closest airport to Napa Valley and the wine country. The closest international airports to Napa Valley are Oakland International Airport, 50 miles south, and San Francisco International Airport, 55 miles south. Sacramento International Airport is 60 miles west of Napa Valley.

Is San Diego close to Napa Valley?

The total driving distance from Napa, CA to San Diego, CA is 520 miles or 837 kilometers. The total straight line flight distance from Napa, CA to San Diego, CA is 481 miles. This is equivalent to 774 kilometers or 418 nautical miles.

Is Napa Valley close to Lake Tahoe?

The direct drive from Napa to South Lake Tahoe is 157 mi (253 km), and should have a drive time of 2 hrs 53 mins in normal traffic. If you're going on a road trip from Napa to South Lake Tahoe, we did the research for you and compiled some great stops along the way — with Sacramento, St.