The fair place to meet is Denver, CO — the city closest to the midpoint of Minneapolis and San Diego. From the farther side that’s about 17 hr 28 min of driving.
Recommended midpoint
Denver, CO
From Minneapolis
14 hr 39 min
699 mi to Denver
From San Diego
17 hr 28 min
833 mi to Denver
Minneapolis has the shorter trip; the split is off by about 2 hr 49 min. The alternatives below can even it out. Minneapolis and San Diego are about 1,531 miles apart.
Minneapolis and San Diego are about 1,531 miles apart by road. Split the difference and you arrive near Denver, the city closest to the halfway point between them. That puts roughly 14 hr 39 min of driving on the Minneapolis side and 17 hr 28 min on the San Diego 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 Minneapolis and San Diego 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 Minneapolis and San Diego.
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 →
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 census, it is the state's most populous city. Read more →
San Diego is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. It is the eighth-most populous city in the U.S. 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.