Seattle · the midpoint
Seattle is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Read more →
The fair place to meet is Seattle, WA — the city closest to the midpoint of Anchorage and Portland. From the farther side that’s about 30 hr 5 min of driving.
Recommended midpoint
Seattle, WA
From Anchorage
30 hr 5 min
1,435 mi to Seattle
From Portland
3 hr 38 min
145 mi to Seattle
Portland has the shorter trip; the split is off by about 26 hr 27 min. The alternatives below can even it out. Anchorage and Portland are about 1,540 miles apart.
Anchorage and Portland are about 1,540 miles apart by road. Split the difference and you arrive near Seattle, the city closest to the halfway point between them. That puts roughly 30 hr 5 min of driving on the Anchorage side and 3 hr 38 min on the Portland side — the fairest single meeting point among the cities near the middle.
Over this distance most people will fly rather than drive the whole way. Seattle still makes a fair, central place for Anchorage and Portland to converge, splitting the travel instead of asking one side to cross the country.
If Seattle doesn't have what you're after, Boise and Sacramento are also close to the midpoint and worth a look — each keeps the drive reasonably balanced between Anchorage and Portland.
Seattle is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Read more →
Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. Read more →
Portland is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in the Pacific Northwest at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, it is the 28th-most populous city in the United States, sixth-most populous on the West Coast, and… Read more →
City descriptions adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA); photos via Wikimedia Commons, credited above.
Estimates use straight-line distance and typical road speeds; real drive times vary with route and traffic.