Sequoia National Park - Which airport
 

Hi,
I'm contemplating a trip to Sequoia National Park this year. The only airports that are nonstop and affordable from my home are San Jose and LAX. According to mapquest, the distance is virtually the same from either airport to the park. My guess is that driving from San Jose airport would be less busy than LAX, and therefore easier. Is this correct?
I've flown into San Jose before, but never LAX.
Thanks in advance.

See if you can get a reasonable fare to Fresno (FAT).
You CAN get from Los Angeles to Fresno by using an Amtrak bus to Bakersfield and a San Joaquin train to FNO (Amtrak station) with a taxi to the airport for a rental car.
San Jose also has an Amtrak station that will also get you on the San Joaquin route to either Merced to get on a YARTS bus or to Fresno to get a rental car.

Depending on time of year and time of week that you are driving it may be well worth your money to fly into Fresno just to save fighting traffic in the Bay Area or in LA.

To drive from FAT ( the Fresno Sir Terminal)to Sequoia is just about an hour. That would be my first choice. If you give a few more details about your dates and times you will get better info. I do NOT recommend the combination of busses and flight and trains and taxis as mentioned above.

Fresno could very well be worth the extra cost and having to connect. Would save you hours of driving -at the expense of having to connect somewhere enroute. IMO/IME I'd rather mess around with an airport connection than drive from San Jose or LA. U less the connection is really really lengthy

Otherwise - Oakland, SFO, San Jose or Sacramento could all work depending on fares/schedules.

Don't even consider faffing about w/ train/bus/taxi.

Thanks for the feedback. I will give more consideration to the idea of flying into Fresno at higher cost, but boy, it's nearly double! I've never spent that kind of money for a domestic trip.

I don't have specific dates yet, lynni, I'm willing to go whenever I see a price I'm comfortable with. Target months are July through September.

Allegiant has cheap flights from Las Vegas to Fresno every day except Tuesdays. https://www2.allegiantair.com/
Does your home airport have a flight to Las Vegas?
Look at the 30 day calendar for the lowest prices.

You didn't say where you're coming from... Does Alaska Airlines fly where you are? You will have to look at specific flight times. The weather will be better in September and the crowds will be be much more manageable. Will you also be wanting to see Yosemite while you're there and possibly other sights?

I'm coming from Houston. Alaska does fly from here and did come up in some search results in combination with another carrier. Yes, Yosemite is on the list too, but that's about it because of time constraints.

Oh Houston! :)

Ok, here are three ideas. You will have to set your own priorities.

Fly from IAH in FAT... have approximately one and a half hour drive to Yosemite Valley or a one hour drive to Sequoia. As you have already figured, this will get you close to the parks and greatly reduce your driving time but you will pay more for that convenience.

Fly from IAH or Hobby to LAX. You will want to avoid peak commute times ( Think of that Freeway that goes through HOuston that is always super busy and has construction a lot of the time. Is it the 10 ?) Install the Sigalert app and tune your radio dial to 1070 AM for traffic updates on the 5. Have a paper map also to figure out other routes if you need them. I would estimate a four hour drive time to Sequoia and five to Yosemite. Could be less if you are lucky or more if a holiday weekend or if traffic is terrible.

Fly from IAH into SBA. Spend either your first or last day of your trip enjoying the perfect weather and the beautiful coastline. From SBA it is about the same amount of driving but not in LA traffic, an hour of it is along the Pacific and the rest goes through farmland and into the Central Valley.

Once you determine how much time you have for your trip and which route seems preferable and affordable, we can help with specific routes for your times of travel.

For the national parks, you will want to make your reservations asap to try to find lodging in the park. If that odesn;'t work, we can also help recommend alternatives and you can keep checking with the parks until the last minute.

If LAX and SJC are your choices, definitely fly into SJC. It's an easier drive than from LAX, plus SJC is just easier to navigate.

I would definitely fly into SJC. Nice, small airport.

If the OP is flying southwest, which is usually better priced, they will need to fly into LAX.

Sacramento is another easy breezy airport. No Bay area or LA area traffic!

If you're using Southwest, consider also Burbank as your gateway airport. It's north of L.A., so you'd miss a lot of the traffic, and the overall flight time HOU-BUR is shorter then HOU-SJC. The drive to Sequoia is shorter too, but then the drive from Yosemite would be longer. I think the lowest BUR fares would be less than the lowest SJC fares, but you'd have to check your specific dates.

Just as an FYI, a new Fresno-Sequoia National Park summer-only shuttle bus starts May 23, 2015.

The Fresno-Sequoia route will operate Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day Weekend each year (similar operating period to the current Sequoia Shuttle out of Visalia that is reachable via Amtrak to Visalia).

The Fresno-Sequoia route will operate 2 or 3 daily roundtips in 2015. It will include stops at the Fresno Airport, Fresno Amtrak and Greyhound stations. The bus will stop in the park at Grant Grove, Wuksachi and Lodgepole.

Additionally, YARTS is also starting a year-round Fresno-Yosemite route on May 23 with 4 daily roundtrips initially.

The two new routes add a National Park travel option via Fresno for visitors or backpackers looking to travel to the parks without a rental car.

I just flew out of and back into SJC this week and it would be a much better alternative than LAX... If you are still deciding.

Thanks, everyone. I'm still monitoring fares, nothing affordable to any of the cities has come up.

If you need to rent a car when you get there, check the costs of that too. I would guess that it would be much cheaper to rent in San Jose than LA, probably at least $100 for a week, depending on what kind of car you get.

Vegas, rent a car see Red Rock Canyon, Hoover Dam before continuing to Cali. Great rates currently to Vegas out of DFW airport which if you live near College Station like your name might indicate would save a ton of money