Anchorage, AK to Hot Springs, AR: distance, drive time and fuel cost
It is about 3565 miles from Anchorage, AK to Hot Springs, AR, which is roughly 56 hr 35 min behind the wheel. Everything below is an estimate — see how it is worked out at the bottom of the page.
Estimated road distance
3,565miles
5,737 km
- Drive time
- 56 hr 35 min
- Average speed
- 63 mph
- Fuel cost
- $442
- Fuel used
- 140.4 gal
The map covers the contiguous United States, so it cannot place Anchorage, AK. Every distance and time on this page is still calculated in full.
Cities along the way
Places within about 25 miles of the route from Anchorage, AK to Hot Springs, AR, in the order you would reach them.
What the drive from Anchorage to Hot Springs is like
This route leaves the United States. The only road between Alaska and the lower 48 runs through British Columbia and the Yukon, and the estimate below is built from the straight-line distance with a road-detour factor applied — a model that assumes a reasonably direct corridor. There is no such corridor here, so treat the figure as a lower bound on a much longer drive, and note that you will need a passport and that fuel is priced in Canadian dollars per litre for most of it.
The route runs from Anchorage, AK to Hot Springs, AR, crossing 5 state lines — Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Speed limits and everyday driving rules are set state by state, so what is posted can change as you cross. At roughly 56 hr 35 min of driving this is a multi-day trip for anyone driving alone. Planned as two or three stages it is a genuine road trip; attempted in one push it is a bad idea.
There are 4 towns of any size close to the line between the two cities, the first being Everett, WA at about 1747 miles in. That matters mostly for where you can stop: on a 56 hr 35 min drive the useful question is not how far it is but where the fuel, food and daylight run out.
The route also crosses a time-zone boundary, so the clock at the far end is 3 hours ahead the one you set off with. Arrival times booked at the destination are in local time, which is the part people get wrong.
Flying this route saves about 47 hr 57 min door to door once airport time is counted, so the drive is a choice rather than the obvious option — worth it if you want the car at the other end, or if you would rather see the 3,565 miles than sit them out.
What the fuel works out at, and what that figure assumes
3,565 miles at 25.4 miles per gallon is about 140.4 gallons, which comes to roughly $442 at $3.15 a gallon. Split between four people that is about $111 each, which is the comparison worth making before you look at a flight price rather than after. Two figures in that sentence are assumptions rather than facts about your trip: the price per gallon, reviewed 2026-08, and the consumption, which is a US fleet average. Both are published with the rest of the method under fuel cost assumptions.
The size of that assumption is easy to see on this route. A fifty-cent move in the pump price either way changes the total by about $70 — so read $442 as the middle of a range from roughly $372 to $512, not as a quote. A car that does noticeably better or worse than 25.4 mpg shifts it further, and neither figure includes tolls, which are charged on a good deal of the interstate network in the northeast and on individual bridges and tunnels elsewhere. Nothing on this page knows which tolls apply to a particular route, so none are counted.
For the same reason the 1,248 kg of CO₂ this drive implies is arithmetic on the fuel rather than a measurement: 140.4 gallons of gasoline at the EPA's figure of 8.89 kg per gallon. It is useful for comparing this route against flying it, or against a longer way round, and not useful as an absolute number.