Direct Flights from Chicago to San Francisco
San Francisco · California
Nonstop service from ORD and MDW to SFO on American, Southwest, United. Here's the schedule at a glance — plus what to do once you land.
Which airports fly this route
Chicago has 2 airports with nonstop service to San Francisco. Fares differ by airport — each row opens that exact search on Kayak.
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- Find flights ↗ORDSFOChicago O'Hare International
- Find flights ↗MDWSFOChicago Midway International
How rare is this nonstop?
80 cities have a nonstop to San Francisco, Chicago among them.
How long to go to San Francisco for, from Chicago
4h 10m in the air, 1,842 miles. A two-night trip loses most of two days to travel; three or four nights is where this one starts to make sense.
With roughly 15 departures a day, you are not tied to one flight: if a meeting overruns or the weather turns, there is another one behind it.
About San Francisco
The centerpiece of the Bay Area, San Francisco is one of the most visited cities in the world, and with good reason. The cultural center of northern California, San Francisco is renowned for its mixture of scenic beauty and unique culture that makes it one of the most vibrant and desirable cities in the nation, if not the world.
Summary from Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA).
Top things to do in San Francisco
- The Internet Archive is an American non-profit library founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org.
- Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond and Sunset districts on the West Side of San Francisco, California, United States.
- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California.
- United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, also known simply as Alcatraz or The Rock, was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles (2.01 km) off the coast of San Francisco, California, United St…
- Lombard Street is an east–west street in San Francisco, California, that is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns. The street stretches from The Presidio east to The Embarcadero.
- USS Hornet (CV/CVA/CVS-12) is an Essex-class aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy (USN) during World War II.
- The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a computer museum in Mountain View, California.
- The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California, United States, named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young.
- The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens.
- The Presidio of San Francisco is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
- Coit Tower is a 210-foot (64 m) tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, overlooking the city and San Francisco Bay.
- Kink.com is an independent San Francisco–based bondage internet pornography company that runs a group of websites devoted to BDSM and related fetishes.
Attraction descriptions from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA); place data from Wikidata (CC0).
San Francisco weather, compared with Chicago
7° warmer than Chicago on average across the year, on daytime highs:
- January
- San Francisco 57°F · Chicago 31°F · 26° warmer
- April
- San Francisco 65°F · Chicago 59°F · 6° warmer
- July
- San Francisco 72°F · Chicago 84°F · 12° colder
- October
- San Francisco 71°F · Chicago 62°F · 9° warmer
San Francisco is the steadier of the two, moving 17° between its coldest and warmest months where Chicago moves 53°.
Average daily highs, 1991–2020 station normals from Meteostat (CC BY 4.0), measured at each city's airport.
Planning a trip to San Francisco
- Best time to visit
- The best time to visit San Francisco is March–November, when daytime highs are a comfortable 62–74°F.
- How long to stay
- San Francisco rewards a longer visit — a full week lets you explore its many sights, from Internet Archive, Golden Gate Park, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and beyond.
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a direct flight from Chicago to San Francisco?
- Yes — you can fly nonstop from Chicago (ORD, MDW) to San Francisco (SFO) on American, Southwest, United.
- Which airlines fly nonstop from Chicago to San Francisco?
- American, Southwest, United fly nonstop between Chicago (ORD, MDW) and San Francisco (SFO).
- Which Chicago airport has nonstop flights to San Francisco?
- You can leave from 2 Chicago airports: ORD (Chicago O'Hare International) on American, United; MDW (Chicago Midway International) on Southwest.
- How many nonstop flights are there from Chicago to San Francisco?
- There are about 15 nonstop departures per day (roughly 105 per week) from Chicago to San Francisco.
- How far is San Francisco from Chicago?
- San Francisco is about 1,842 miles from Chicago by air.
- What is there to do in San Francisco?
- Popular things to do include Internet Archive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, and more.
More nonstop destinations from Chicago near San Francisco
Airports near Chicago
The closest other departure airports to Chicago — each opens up more nonstop destinations.