How many hours from Chicago to Michigan

Q: How long is Detroit from Chicago by car?

The drive isnt bad either, as its about 280 miles and takes around four hours and 15 minutes to drive from Chicago to Detroit if you take I-90 and I-94.

The driving time from Chicago, Illinois to Michigan (MI) is:

4 hours, 4 minutes

Average driving speed: 65.4 mph
Kilometers per hour: 105.2 km/h
This is based on typical traffic conditions for this route.

Map of driving directions from Chicago, IL to Michigan

View a map with driving directions using your preferred map provider: Google Maps, Bing Maps, or MapQuest.

More trip calculations

How long is the drive from Chicago, IL to Michigan? The total driving time is 4 hours, 4 minutes.

Your trip begins in Chicago, Illinois. It ends in the state of Michigan.

If you're planning a road trip, you might be interested in seeing the total driving distance from Chicago, IL to Michigan.

You can also calculate the cost to drive from Chicago, IL to Michigan based on current local gas prices and an estimate of your car's best gas mileage.

If you're meeting a friend, you might be interested in finding the city that is halfway between Chicago, IL and Michigan.

Planning to fly a plane instead? You might be more interested in calculating the flight time from Chicago, IL to Michigan.

Driving time calculator

Travelmath helps you find the driving time based on actual directions for your road trip. You can find out how long it will take to drive between any two cities, airports, states, countries, or zip codes. This can also help you plan the best route to travel to your destination. Compare the results with the flight time calculator to see how much longer it might take to drive the distance instead of flying. You can also print out pages with a travel map.

The driving time from Michigan (MI) to Chicago, Illinois is:

4 hours, 4 minutes

Average driving speed: 65.4 mph
Kilometers per hour: 105.2 km/h
This is based on typical traffic conditions for this route.

Plan your trip at

Map of driving directions from Michigan to Chicago, IL

View a map with driving directions using your preferred map provider: Google Maps, Bing Maps, or MapQuest.

More trip calculations

How long is the drive from Michigan to Chicago, IL? The total driving time is 4 hours, 4 minutes.

Your trip begins in the state of Michigan. It ends in Chicago, Illinois.

If you're planning a road trip, you might be interested in seeing the total driving distance from Michigan to Chicago, IL.

You can also calculate the cost to drive from Michigan to Chicago, IL based on current local gas prices and an estimate of your car's best gas mileage.

If you're meeting a friend, you might be interested in finding the city that is halfway between Michigan and Chicago, IL.

Planning to fly a plane instead? You might be more interested in calculating the flight time from Michigan to Chicago, IL.

Driving time calculator

Driving non-stop from Chicago to Michigan City

How far is Michigan City from Chicago? Here's the quick answer if you drive this relatively short distance without making any stops.

Nonstop drive: 59 miles or 95 km

Driving time: 1 hour, 8 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.

Flying non-stop from Chicago to Michigan City

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Chicago, Illinois and Michigan City, Indiana. 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: 40 miles or 64 km

Flight time: 9 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 19 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.5x 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.

Chicago to Michigan City road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Michigan City, 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 Chicago.

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:

Chicago to Michigan City 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: Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)

Arrival airport: Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)

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: 47 minutes

Getting to your destination: 134 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from ORD to MDW 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: 18 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Chicago to Michigan City 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: 5 hours

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

Plan a trip to Michigan City

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Michigan City, Indiana. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Michigan City. Click the button below to explore Michigan City 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 Michigan City to Chicago, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

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

How long does it take to get to Chicago to Michigan by car?

Yes, the driving distance between Chicago to Michigan is 282 miles. It takes approximately 4h 39m to drive from Chicago to Michigan.

How far is a flight from Chicago to Michigan?

How long is the flight from Chicago to Michigan? A quick flight from Chicago to Michigan can take about 1h 17m. United Airlines provides one of the quickest options available for as low as $141. Chicago and Michigan are separated by a distance of 235 mi.

How far is Michigan from Illinois by plane?

The air travel (bird fly) shortest distance between Illinois and Michigan is 514 km= 319 miles. If you travel with an airplane (which has average speed of 560 miles) from Illinois to Michigan, It takes 0.57 hours to arrive.

How long is Detroit from Chicago by car?

The drive isn't bad either, as it's about 280 miles and takes around four hours and 15 minutes to drive from Chicago to Detroit if you take I-90 and I-94.