Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Los Angeles, California and Santa Monica, 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: 14 miles or 23 km
Flight time: 5 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 2 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 1/3th 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.
Los Angeles to Santa Monica road trip
Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Santa Monica, 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: 50 minutes on the road
Itinerary
Start in Los Angeles.
Drive for about 15 minutes, then stop at LACMA and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 8 minutes then stop in Culver City and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 15 minutes then stop in Venice Beach and stay for 1.5 hours.
Finally, drive for about 11 minutes and arrive in Santa Monica.
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:
Plan a trip to Santa Monica
Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Santa Monica, California. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Santa Monica. 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: Is the Santa Monica Pier worth seeing?. 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 Santa Monica like Santa Monica Pier. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Santa Monica like Drinks in SM?. Click the button below to explore Santa Monica in detail.
Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Santa Monica, California and Los Angeles, 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: 14 miles or 23 km
Flight time: 32 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 2 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.
Santa Monica to Los Angeles road trip
Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Los Angeles, 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: 51 minutes on the road
Itinerary
Start in Santa Monica.
Drive for about 11 minutes, then stop in Venice Beach and stay for about 1.5 hours. Next, drive for another 15 minutes then stop in Culver City and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 8 minutes then stop at LACMA and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 14 minutes then stop at Downtown Los Angeles and stay for 1 hour.
Finally, drive for about 5 minutes and arrive in Los Angeles.
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: