SMF to Davis: every honest way in

You land at SMF with a suitcase, a backpack and a phone on 4%, and Davis feels close enough that it should be easy. It mostly is. The catch is geography: the airport sits north of the river on the Sacramento side, Davis is west across the causeway, and nothing connects them in a straight line except a road.

Here is every real way to cover that gap, and the part everyone forgets until it is too late: the trip back out to the terminal.

The bus: take the 42A, not the 42B

Yolobus runs routes 42A and 42B to Sacramento International, stopping at both Terminal A and Terminal B on the arrivals level, every 30–60 minutes, seven days a week. (Yolobus, SMF service)

The letter matters more than anything else on this page. The 42 is one big loop, and the two letters run it in opposite directions:

• 42A goes clockwise — Woodland, then the airport, then downtown Sacramento, West Sacramento, and Davis. (Route 42A)
• 42B goes counter-clockwise — Woodland, Davis, West Sacramento, downtown, then the airport. (Route 42B)

So arriving, you want the 42A. It runs down through downtown and West Sacramento into Davis, with stops at Mace & 2nd, 5th & Cantrill and the UC Davis Memorial Union. Board a 42B by mistake and you will see Woodland first and the entire long way around.

Leaving for a flight, it flips: from Davis, the 42B is the direct one to the terminals.

The 42 is an intercity route, so a single ride is $2.25 for an adult, and riders 18 and under ride free, on the price list in effect July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. (Yolobus ticket prices)

One caution, and it is the important one: pull up the timetable for the actual day you land before you build a plan on it. Weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays and holidays run different columns, and a flight that slips an hour can put you on the wrong side of the schedule with a bag you cannot walk with. That is not a knock on the bus — it is a good bus, it is the cheapest thing on this page, and it goes exactly where you are going. It is a knock on the hours, and it is the same gap that makes a 10pm arrival hard everywhere in Yolo County.

App-hailed, when the timing doesn't work

If you land outside the useful part of the timetable, or you are moving a term's worth of luggage, the on-demand apps do serve SMF: the airport has designated pick-up zones and posts the exact one for each terminal. (SMF, app-based ride share) There is no published rate for this trip: the price moves with the time of day and how many drivers are out, and Davis is far enough out that it lands well above a bus ticket. Quote it in the app before you commit, and if someone on your flight is also headed to Davis, sharing one is the only real lever you have on the number.

If you need door-to-door

The airport lists two options for passengers with disabilities: Paratransit, which needs a reservation at least two business days ahead and advance registration for local customers, and Med Star. Both are booked by phone, not by app. (SMF, shuttles and more) Plan these before you fly, not from the curb.

Go with someone who's already driving to Davis

Cars leave SMF for Davis all day — students coming back from break, families on the causeway run, people who just dropped someone off. And most cars on any road have empty seats.

That is what TAGO is for. It is a carpool for students: you sign in with your .edu email, you post the flight you are on, and you see who else is going the same way at the same hour. Nobody is running a service here. It is people with a car and people without one, splitting the cost of a drive that was happening anyway.

Two things make it fit an airport run specifically:

You post the flight, not a guess. Your arrival is a fixed, public fact — the one thing in this whole plan that is not vague. A driver seeing "lands 4:15pm, Terminal B" knows exactly what they are agreeing to, and so do you.

The round ask covers the trip back. For places like the airport, the return leg is part of the same ask, not a separate scramble three weeks later. You sort the ride out to the terminal at the same time you sort the ride in.

What a rider contributes is capped at the IRS standard business mileage rate for the day of the trip. That is a legal ceiling on cost-sharing, and it is enforced in the code behind every trip, not promised in an ad. Past the first eight miles the per-mile rate eases down, so the causeway run costs less per mile than a hop across town.

Nothing here promises a car will be waiting. It depends on who happens to be going, which is why the move is to post early — days before you fly, not from baggage claim. The Sacramento International Airport page on TAGO shows how many people are heading that way; routes and names stay private until you sign in with your .edu.

The two-minute plan

1. Check the 42A timetable for the day of your flight, in the column that matches that day.
2. If your arrival lands outside it, you need a car in the plan — decide that now, not on the curb.
3. Post the flight early if you want the option of riding with someone going the same way.
4. Sort the trip back to the terminal at the same time as the trip in.
5. Screenshot everything. Your phone will be at 4% and the terminal wifi will not help.