Flying from Tokyo to San Francisco?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Tokyo to San Francisco?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Tokyo to San Francisco?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Tokyo → San Francisco
A very long flight from Japan to United States. Set your watch back 16 hours on arrival.
You'll cross the International Date Line and the calendar rolls back a day at the crossing.
The world's largest metropolis
Tokyo anchors the most populous metropolitan area on Earth, a sprawling lowland of districts that each feel like a city in their own right. It runs on an unrivaled web of trains and subways, punctual and dense, that makes a car pointless for most visitors. The center has no single heart but many, with government, business, and shopping districts spread across the rail map. Its two airports lie at very different distances from the city, so the choice matters.
City access
Narita is the farther airport, well east of Tokyo in Chiba prefecture, around 60 km (35 mi) out. Fast express trains reach the center in roughly an hour, but it is a notably longer trip than from Haneda. Factor that distance in, especially for tight connections or late arrivals.
Nearby airports
| 60 km / 37 mi |
Surrounding hubs
| 787 km / 489 mi | |
| 940 km / 584 mi | |
| 1,038 km / 645 mi |
The City by the Bay
San Francisco packs a famously hilly, fog-prone peninsula into about 122 sq km (47 sq mi), with the bay on one side and the Pacific on the other. It is one of the few American cities genuinely built for transit and walking: a dense streetcar, cable car, and bus network covers the city, and BART carries it onward to Oakland and Berkeley. Distances are short, but steep hills and scarce parking make a car more trouble than help in the core. Cool, foggy summers surprise visitors expecting California heat.
Surrounding hubs
| 719 km / 447 mi | |
| 962 km / 598 mi | |
| 1,046 km / 650 mi |
Find out which side of the plane to sit on.
Pick your airports, set your departure time, and you're done.
We calculate the sun's position based on your flight path and departure time, then tell you which side of the plane gets direct sun and which stays shaded. No guessing, just math.
Enter your flight
Pick your departure and arrival airports and set your departure time at the departure airport. FlightSide estimates the duration and you can adjust it if you know the exact schedule.
We track the sun along your route
Your flight path is broken into hundreds of points. At each one we check where the sun is and which side of the plane it faces.
You get a recommendation
Which side of the plane to sit on, left or right, depending on whether you'd rather avoid the sun or enjoy it. The percentages and the map are there if you want to see why.
Want to go deeper? Accuracy, edge cases, polar routes — see the FAQ →
Notes from the product.
Small updates, route observations, and clearer explanations for how the app keeps evolving.
Type less, wait less, wonder more
Airport search now understands metro codes and old city names, FlightSide loads noticeably faster, and a new Feeling lucky button chooses a flight for anyone without one in mind.
A closer look at the route, not just the seat
FlightSide now shows the two cities and key details about the flight alongside the seat recommendation: confirm you picked the right airports, read the time change off two clocks, and check the return leg.
It's all about the sun (after all)
Not all sunlight reaches the side windows. FlightSide now weighs the sun’s angle to the cabin and shows twilight along the route.