Flying non-stop from Boston to New York City
Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in thefastest possible straight line between Boston, Massachusetts andNew York, New York. 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.
Flight distance: 190 miles or 306 km
Flight time: 48 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 25 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 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.
Boston to New York City road trip
Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to New York 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 estimateyour total travel time for this trip.
Travel time: 4.5 hours on the road
Itinerary
Start in Boston.
Drive for about 1.5 hours, then stop at Old Sturbridge Village (Massachusetts) and stay for about 1 hour.Next, drive for another 54 minutes then stop in Hartford and stay for 1 hour.Drive for 42 minutes then stop in New Haven and stay for 1 hour.Drive for 47 minutes then stop in Stamford (Connecticut) and stay for 1 hour.Drive for 45 minutes then stop at Central Park and stay for 2 hours.
Finally, drive for about 10 minutes and arrive in New York City.
To see all the details on this itinerary, includingrecommended restaurants, hotels, and things to do alongthe way, check out the full road trip planner:
Boston to New York City 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: Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
Arrival airport: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
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: 7 minutes
Getting to your destination: 38 minutes
Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from BOS to JFK 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: 1 hour, 18 minutes
So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time fromBoston to New York City 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: 4 hours
To see the details on this flight plan, includingrecommended airports, airline, and route, check outthe flight planner:
Plan a trip to New York City
Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to New York, New York. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in New York City, or find out how many days in New York City 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: Day Trip: NYC to Boston. If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out The Standard New York. A great place to eat might be Katz's Delicatessen. Trippy members can suggest things to do in New York City like Central Park. Check out some of the questions people have asked about New York City like Is it a good idea to visit NYC in December?. Click the button below to explore New York 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 differencesso go ahead and check the reverse directions to get thedistance from New York City to Boston, or go to the main pageto calculate the distance between cities.
If you happen to know Boston, don't forget to help othertravelers and answer some questions about Boston!
