The classic image of California is a golden sunset over the Pacific Ocean, but that picture only begins to scratch the surface. The 155,000-square-mile land mass of the Golden State encompasses a mind-bending array of landscapes. Its rambling geography spreads across 840 miles of coastline, nearly 200 distinct mountain ranges, 25,000 square miles of desert, and a smattering of snow-capped volcanos. That’s merely a snapshot.
Northern California has dense groves of towering redwoods that thrive in a cool, temperate rainforest. It has a driftwood-strewn coastline dotted with offshore rocks and picturesque seaside hamlets. It contains the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a 400-mile-long string of saw-toothed peaks, super-sized sequoias, and thousands of alpine lakes. The range cradles Lake Tahoe, one of the world’s largest alpine lakes, and Mount Whitney, the highest summit in the contiguous United States (14,505 feet).
Just north of San Francisco, the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma produce some of the world’s most famous wines. To the east, in the Central Valley, lies some of the world’s most fertile agricultural land.
Southern California has an unmatched set of wonders packed into its diverse landscapes. Los Angeles County offers urban pleasures—from Hollywood’s iconic landmarks to world-class art museums and free-spirited theme parks—as well as stunning beaches, high desert, and a wealth of sunshine. Just 100 miles east are the snow-capped peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains and the saddle-tan deserts of the Greater Palm Springs area, a manicured landscape of swimming pools framed by rugged, 10,000-foot peaks. Farther east lies the wild desert terrain of salt flats, creosote, and sand dunes in Joshua Tree, Mojave, and Death Valley.
The southern county of San Diego may be best known for its 70 miles of coastline that support a rich surfing culture, but it also has its own desert, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, filled with remote canyons, cacti, and bighorn sheep. In between the desert and the ocean lie two inland mountain ranges, the Lagunas and Cuyamacas, which receive an occasional dusting of snow.
Understanding California's Immense Scale
California is super-sized by any metric. The third-largest U.S. state comprises more square miles than many countries, with a land mass that’s more than three times the size of Greece and four times bigger than Iceland. If you compare California’s land mass to other U.S. states, it’s nearly three times as large as Florida and 3.5 times as large as New York.
California’s elongated outline sprawls across nearly 900 miles, stretching from its northern border with Oregon to its southern border with Mexico. Driving California from north to south takes approximately 15 hours, comparable to a journey along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard from New York to Florida, or driving from Denver to Chicago.
Distances Between California Destinations
Even if you only go to the state’s most-visited cities—San Francisco in the north and Los Angeles in the south—you’ll need a full day to cover the 380-mile distance between them. Add on a trip farther south to San Diego, and you’ll need 2.5 hours more to cover an additional 125 miles.
If you’re traveling east to west across the state, you’ll find that California is large across the middle, too. To get from Mammoth Lakes’ ski resort in the eastern Sierra Nevada to the Pacific beaches of Santa Barbara, you’ll need about 6.5 hours to cover 380 miles. To drive along the path of Route 66 in California—the legendary highway that once spanned Southern California and seven other states—you’ll cover 316 miles from Needles to Santa Monica.
Distances Within California’s Urban Areas
Even within California’s metropolitan regions, distances are great. Los Angeles is a massive city that covers about 500 square miles and has 88 distinct suburbs. There’s so much geography between L.A.’s spread-out communities that the weather in, say, Long Beach is often completely different than the weather in, say, Pasadena.
L.A.’s theme parks are spread out, too. The drive from Universal Studios Hollywood to Disneyland in Anaheim is 40 miles. If you’re touring Orange County beach towns from Huntington Beach to San Clemente, you’ll cruise past 40 miles of coastline.
The San Francisco Bay Area is also vast. San Francisco and San Jose are separated by 50 miles. Plan on at least an hour to make the drive.
How Far Is It? California Travel Mileage
If your goal is to visit California’s majestic desert parks, plug this number into your planning: 230 highway miles separate Death Valley’s dazzling badlands and Joshua Tree’s astounding rock formations. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego is another 60 miles south from Joshua Tree.
California’s largest county, San Bernardino, covers more than 20,000 square miles—which is bigger than Vermont and New Hampshire combined.
Even in smaller counties, towns are often far-flung, both in miles and character. Within the boundaries of winery-rich Sonoma County, historic Sonoma Plaza’s artisan cafes and boutiques lie 85 miles from the laidback beach hamlet of Sea Ranch, where the seaside climate makes summer days 20 degrees cooler.
On California’s eastern side in Inyo County, winter drops deep, powdery snow in the high mountains near Mammoth Lakes and Bishop, but 165 miles away, the low desert at Furnace Creek bakes under a searing sun, with its hottest spots reaching as high as 124 degrees Fahrenheit in summer.
The bottom line: California is grand in scope and scale. Give yourself plenty of time to go the distance. Here are some time and distance calculations to help you plan your next visit. (Note: drive times are approximate and vary depending on time of day and traffic patterns.)
San Diego to Anaheim: 95 miles/153 km (2 hours)
San Diego to Los Angeles: 120 miles/193 km (2.5 hours)
Anaheim to Los Angeles: 27 miles/43 km (1 hour)
Los Angeles to Palm Springs: 105 miles/169 km (2 hours)
Los Angeles to Santa Barbara: 95 miles/153 km (2 hours)
Yosemite National Park to Sequoia National Park: 160 miles/258 km (4 hours)
Yosemite National Park to Death Valley National Park: 250 miles/403 km (5 hours)
Sacramento to Redding: 160 miles/258 km (2.5 hours)
Sacramento to San Francisco: 90 miles/145 km (2 hours)
Truckee to San Francisco: 187 miles/301 km (3.5 hours)
San Francisco to Napa: 50 miles/ 80 km (1 hour)
San Francisco to Sonoma: 45 miles/72 km (1 hour)
San Francisco to Yosemite: 200 miles/322 km (3.5 hours)
California Wildfires: What You Need to Know
California is renowned for its stunning natural beauty, but it also faces challenges from wildfires. Understanding the nature and causes of wildfires is crucial for both residents and visitors to California.
The majority of California’s wildfires burn in uninhabited areas that are dense with natural vegetation—forests, grasslands, and chapparal-covered hillsides. These are known as “wildland fires,” which often burn across huge swaths of federally managed lands, like national forests or national parks. Wildfires that burn across privately owned land in cities or urban areas, like the L.A. fires of January 2025, are still relatively rare.
How Wildfires Happen
California residents and visitors celebrate the state’s near-endless sunshine, but a shortage of wet weather can also prime the land for wildfires. Unlike other parts of the country where it rains off and on year-round, California’s official “wet season” lasts only from October to April. In reality, 50 percent of the state’s rain and snow typically arrives in the three-month window between December and February. The rest of the year, most of the state has warm, dry weather.
Couple that extended period of little or no rainfall with California’s low relative humidity, and the state’s foliage can get parched. There’s little to no moisture to prevent the drying out of grasses, shrubs, and trees until the winter precipitation arrives. The wet season may also arrive much later than unusual or may not produce much precipitation, which leads to severe drought conditions. Southern California’s famous Santa Ana winds and Northern California’s Diablo winds can also worsen the conditions. Both travel from east to west, picking up speed as they’re channeled through mountain passes and canyons.
How to Stay Informed
Find out about active and recent wildfires on the Watch Duty app, which also lists any evacuation zones and orders. To get the latest air quality and weather information for any California destination, check the EPA’s website AirNow.gov or the National Weather Service. The CAL FIRE website provides updated maps and data for California fires, plus information on fire-related road closures. The Cal Fire agency is responsible for fire protection and prevention on more than 31 million acres of privately owned land in California.
InciWeb is a national, interagency incident information system. It is designed to be a single information source for fires that occur on federal, state, or regionally managed lands.
If you’re planning a trip and would like to find out about potential wildfire risks—either in California or elsewhere in the U.S.—check the National Interagency Coordination Center website, which displays “significant fire potential” maps based on current weather-related risks such as drought, high winds, lightning, and high temperatures. Maps are available in a weekly or monthly format.