15 Best Travel Songs to Get You in the Mood to Wander
Travel quotes are inspiring. Yes. But do you know this feeling when you’re listening to a song, and suddenly you want to pack your bags and leave wherever life takes you?
Sometimes, it’s just the lyrics about traveling, and you can’t really explain why this particular song gets you like this, but sometimes it’s also the lyrics. One line, the chorus, sometimes even just one word.
Here are some songs whose lyrics will make you want to travel; some will make you think about the way you travel, some will make you think about what you’re looking for on your travels, and others will just make you smile.
Best Travel Songs and What They’re About:
1. Kylie Minogue’s “Light Years” captures that feeling of sensing adventure calling from far away, and knowing it’ll catch up with you soon.
2. R.E.M.’s “You Are the Everything” describes the strange sensation of time slowing down while traveling, and the deep peace that comes with it.
3. Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” is about roaming the world, and how everyone out there is searching for something of their own.
4. Elvis Presley’s “Harem Holiday” is about the pull of the wide world outside, and the urge to pack up and answer its call.
5. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour’s “Golden Age” has this wandering, unhurried energy to it — moving through the world with a settled mind, surprised by how good it feels.
6. Madonna’s “Justify My Love” name-checks Paris and Rome as backdrops for romance — the classic fantasy of falling for someone in a beautiful, foreign city.
7. Joni Mitchell’s “California” captures the flip side of travel — the loneliness of walking streets full of strangers, missing somewhere familiar.
8. Fleet Foxes’ “Mykonos” is about following your own path wherever it leads, while still holding onto the friends who matter along the way.
9. The xx’s “Islands” is about searching far and wide for something that, it turns out, was close by all along.
10. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ “Home” makes the case that home isn’t really a place at all — it’s wherever the right person happens to be.
11. U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” is about wanting to break free of the walls, labels, and boundaries that box people in.
12. Frank Sinatra’s “Lonesome Road” opens with the image of looking down a long, solitary road before setting off on it.
13. Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Travel On” is about that restless feeling of having stayed in one town too long, and knowing it’s time to move on.
14. The National’s “Fake Empire” has this hazy, half-awake quality to it — the sense of drifting through something not quite real, and choosing not to overthink it.
15. John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is the classic bittersweet farewell song — boarding a flight with no fixed date for the return.
“Where the Streets Have No Name” is my favorite one from this list. The lyrics were inspired by a story Bono heard about Belfast, Northern Ireland, where a person’s religion and income were evident by the street on which they lived. He put this in contrast with the anonymity he felt when visiting Ethiopia. We should all live in a world where things like religion and income don’t define us, and we can all come together as one, without walls or prejudices.
If you liked this post you will also like my post about the 11 Best Travel Quotes – From The Movies.
What are your favorite songs about traveling? What kind of music are you listening to when you’re travelling?
