The fair place to meet is Denver, CO — the city closest to the midpoint of Chicago and Sacramento. From the farther side that’s about 19 hr 15 min of driving.
Recommended midpoint
Denver, CO
From Chicago
19 hr 15 min
918 mi to Denver
From Sacramento
18 hr 35 min
887 mi to Denver
Sacramento has the shorter trip; the split is off by about 40 min. The alternatives below can even it out. Chicago and Sacramento are about 1,789 miles apart.
Chicago and Sacramento are about 1,789 miles apart by road. Split the difference and you arrive near Denver, the city closest to the halfway point between them. That puts roughly 19 hr 15 min of driving on the Chicago side and 18 hr 35 min on the Sacramento 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. Denver still makes a fair, central place for Chicago and Sacramento to converge, splitting the travel instead of asking one side to cross the country.
If Denver doesn't have what you're after, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City are also close to the midpoint and worth a look — each keeps the drive reasonably balanced between Chicago and Sacramento.
Denver is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Officially a consolidated city and county, it is located in the South Platte River valley on the western edge of the High Plains, and is just east of the Front Range of the Rocky… Read more →
Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the third-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 2.74 million at the 2020 census. Read more →
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California. The county seat of Sacramento County, it is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in the Sacramento Valley. 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.