San Francisco International Airport to Boise Airport is a short western hop, taking travellers from the Bay Area into southwestern Idaho. It is one of the briefer routes on this site, and the sort of flight people take without much planning, which is exactly why the fare and the timing reward a quick comparison.

The shortest journey showing is 1 hours 40 minutes. Boise Airport sits close to the city, so the total door-to-door time is short by the standards of American air travel, and the arrival end rarely adds the long transfer that bigger cities impose.

Boise has grown quickly over the past decade, partly on people and companies moving inland from the coast, and this route carries a good deal of that traffic. It is also the way into Idaho's outdoors: the Sawtooth range, the Boise River greenbelt and the ski hills within reach of the city.

Winter brings snow to the mountains around Boise and turns the route into a ski corridor, while summer is hot, dry and the season for rafting and hiking. Those two peaks mean the shoulder months of spring and autumn are often the easier times to find a seat at a sensible fare.

Because the flight is short, the practical variable is which time of day suits you rather than the length of the journey. Early departures from San Francisco give you a full day in Idaho, and travellers heading into the mountains generally want that rather than an afternoon arrival.

Both ends are domestic, so identification accepted for United States air travel is what you need rather than a passport. San Francisco International is the slower end of this trip by some margin, so build your timings around the departure rather than around the arrival at Boise.