Here’s the 13 best travel songs. Following my stab at a list of the 13 best movies about travel, I thought I’d work to come up with the very best songs about travel.
That’s a very different exercise than the best songs for travel, this isn’t a ‘play list for the road’ it’s about borrowing someone else’s poetry to describe the travel experience. There’s no question that George Gershwin didn’t write Rhapsody in Blue to be about travel, but it’s equally clear that the 1924 composition has become inextricably linked with United Airlines.
What songs most evoke travel for you and are missing from my list? Which ones here are new to you?
The 13 best travel songs:
- Iggy Pop – The Passenger. This 1977 classic resulted from Iggy Pop travelling with David Bowie on tour in North America and Europe. Reportedly he didn’t have a license and the two drove around in Bowie’s car. Although it’s also said to be loosely based on a Jim Morrison poem.
The song features in the trailer for Up in the Air and in promos for Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. There’s probably nothing more evocative of travel.
- Paul Kelly – Sydney from a 727. I first discovered Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly on a visit to my family Down Under over 25 years ago. I was instantly a fan. He’s been a member of the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame for nearly 20 years, though a virtual unknown in the States though he’s toured here.
Listening to Sydney from a 727 (which was also recorded as being from a 747), you can almost picture coming in for approach off the ocean (“I can see Bondi through my window way off to the right”) while capturing the spirit to take off in search of something (“And quit your job on the spot / Bought that ticket yeah spent the lot”). While no song quite captures the landing sequence quite like this one:
And the captain says belt up now we’ll be touching down in ten
So I press my seat and I straighten up
I fold my tray and I stash my cup
As the red roofs are catching the first rays of the morning sun - The Animals – We Gotta Get Out of This Place. It’s an anthem that speaks to almost everyone, because everyone wants change. It was popular with soliders in Vietnam, with high school students who can’t wait to get out on their own, and with travelers who need to travel and feel cooped up when they’re at ‘home’.
- The Proclaimers – I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). As if taking a journey, taking a long arduous journey, to make your way to someone wasn’t enough someone once actually walked 1000 miles to convince his girlfriend to marry him. It turns out the journey wasn’t a real precondition of marriage and she was joking, but he did it anyway.
- David Byrne – A Million Miles Away. No, this singer who once led the Talking Heads isn’t talking about what you have to go through to earn lifetime elite status.
But he is singing about the need to get away — travel far, far away — and become someone else, and be seen as someone else (“A toad is a prince in someone else’s eyes
And you can’t tell a man by his clothes”). - Simon & Garfunkel – Homeward Bound. Is there any other song that’s truly the business traveler’s anthem? Waking up in the middle of the night, after being on the road for weeks at a time, and wondering what city you’re in you grab your phone because a weather app is on the home screen. And it tells you what city you’re in.
I’m sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket to my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand.
…Every day’s an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
And every stranger’s face I see reminds me that I long to be,
Homeward bound - Johnny Cash – I’ve Been Everywhere. Originally an Australian country song which named that country’s towns, it’s amazing the song has been made to work for Singapore, Belgium, Canada and any number of other places too.
With all the US cities Johnny Cash has been to — Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City, Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City, what a pity — I hope he’s saved up his miles and points because he could really use an international vacation.
- George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin’s classic is more United Airlines now than anything else, at least to a traveler. The original composition from the tunnel connecting United’s B and C concourses at Chicago O’Hare is a riff on Rhapsody in Blue.
- Phil Collins – Take Me Home. Maybe the song isn’t actually about going home. And maybe it’s a protest song against involuntary confinement in mental institutions. But for me it’s about longing for home, being on the road so long that you can hardly remember it but home is still your true North. (.. But, seriously.)
There’s a fire that’s been burning
Right outside my door
I can’t see but I feel it
And it helps to keep me warm…So take, take me home
‘Cause I don’t remember - Elvis Costello – Peace Love & Understanding. As I walk through this wicked world, searching for light in the darkness of insanity, I ask myself “Is all hope lost?”
It may not immediately seem like a travel song, but travel is about connecting with and engaging people and culture different from your own and yet building a common bond — of peace, love, and understanding. And it helps that the song was featured in Lost in Translation too.
- Frank Sinatra – Come Fly With Me. Come fly with me let’s fly let’s fly away. It spent 5 weeks at number one, and just as I want to claim George Clooney as one of us for Up in the Air we’ve got to lay claim to Sinatra…
- Ricky Nelson – Travelin’ Man. This 1961 classic shows its age, there’s no question it objectifies women, the song is about each city in the world in which he has a girl. But he clearly gets around.. to Mexico, Berlin, Hong Kong not to mention Hawaii and Alaska. But since its 1961, there’s no music video so it’s safe for work!
- Red Hot Chili Peppers – Around The World (or maybe Aeroplane or Road Trippin’). When I first started thinking about this list it didn’t occur to me that The Red Hot Chili Peppers would be on it, but they have several songs about travel, from the plane to car but Around the World is the most meta and in some sense follows Elvis Costello with lines like “life is beautiful around the world” and indeed it is.
So what am I missing? What belongs on this list?

Great list, Gary!
When Patrick Smith (“Ask The Pilot”) repeated a quote about the band Hüsker Dü’s version of the Byrd’s Eight Miles High being “one of the most powerful pieces of rock music ever recorded”, we both agree on that. It’s something fierce!
City and colour “Coming Home”
Flying Home – Chris DeBurgh
Any song that starts:
We’re sitting out here on the runway,
Waiting for the plane to leave,
And the Captain says, “There’ll be a short delay,
Bear with me please, “
Midnight Rider? Ramblin Man?
Unapologetic Allman Bros fan here
Beautiful Day – U2
See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the see out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
Leaving on a Jet Plane John Denver
Silver Wings Merle
Two of the best, especially if you were a flight attendant in the 70s
no Beyond The Sea?no Sailing?
Look like you don’t like ship at all.
Kathy, I bet you could tell us some great stories. Please send some good ones to Gary and he’ll share them with us.
Travelin’ Band, by CCR
737 comin’ out of the sky,
Won’t you take me down to Memphis on a midnight ride…
Wilco. “Dash 7”
Promised Land – Elvis
Truckin’ – The Grateful Dead
Leaving on a Jet plane – John Denver
Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin/Kris Kristofferson
Gordon Lightfoot- Early Morning Rain, The Mountains and MaryAnn
Orinoco flow
Jerry Reed – East Bound/West Bound and Down
Voyage, voyage by Desireless
Far Away – Jessica Childress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CulcvUV5lP8
Two Tickets to Paradise – Eddie Money https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYEgYVyBDuM
On the Road Again – Willie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBN86y30Ufc
Holiday Road – Lindsey Buckingham
Not that it is a long song and meaningful, but how many people hear this and think of Clark W. Griswold’s and maybe your own family travels?
A few I can think of:
“A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” -Dwight Yoakum
“Back In The USSR” -The Beatles
“Rockaway Beach” -The Ramones
“Carrying Your Love With Me” -George Strait
“Last Exit To Brooklyn” -Gene Pitney
“Cruisin’ ” – Smokey Robinson
“Amarillo By Morning” – George Strait (#2!)
“Chatanooga Choo-Choo” -Glenn Miller
“Party Train” -The Gap Band
“Last Train To Clarksville” -The Monkees
“Jet Airliner” -Steve Miller Band
Route 66
The Final Countdown, perhaps for those space tourists to be?
Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
Strangers In The Night – Saxon
Las Vegas Turnaround – Hall and Oates
Stan Rogers – Barrett’s Privateers
Stan Rogers – Northwest Passage
Flying High Again – Ozzy
Home Sweet Home – Motley Crue
Freebird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Letter – Boxcars (“Give me a ticket for an aer-o-plane…”)
Runnin’ Down A Dream – Tom Petty
Movin’ Right Along – Muppet Movie soundtrack
Upvote on Two Tickets For Paradise and Leaving on a Jet Plane
“Back In The USA” Linda Ronstadt.
“Vacation” by The Go-Go’s!
Holiday Road: Lindsay Buckingham
He Went to Paris: Jimmy Buffett
Africa: Toto
Actually a lot of Jimmy Buffet songs are on my Playlist, especially if you travel to islands, on a boat or like the beach
Leaving on a Jet Plane (Peter, Paul, & Mary)
Up, up and Away by the 5th Dimension (TWA’s theme song)
Holiday in the Sun – The Sex Pistols
Safe European Home – The Clash
Holiday in Cambodia – Dead Kennedys
missing changes in lattitudes, changes in attitudes
READING DEPARTURE SIGNS IN SOME STRANGE AIRPORT REMINDS ME OF PLACES IVE BEEN
sigh. YES!!!!
Um, AC/DC “Highway to Hell” about flying domestic coach?
Seriously Gary, this is one of the most interesting articles you’ve ever written! And great comments! Enjoying all the embedded videos!
Thanks!
sitroomlarry yes! “Running on Empty!” Loved that whole album recorded on the road, about the road!
Just curious Gary, why 13?
Did I miss something?
That would not be a first for me…..
Wasted Years – Iron Maiden
Passage to Bangkok – Rush
Mamma I’m comin’ home – Ozzy
Home Sweet Home – Motley Crue
Most apropos for me is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” — yes I’m a Bama native and graduate so this is the ultimate homecoming song for me
Close runner up is “Tennessee Jed” by the Grateful Dead — “Tennessee, Tennessee, there ain’t no place I’d rather be/Baby won’t you carry me back to Tennessee” I got my grad degrees at Vanderbilt so it too has a wonderful homecoming quality for me
Beyond the Blue Horizon
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
I’d Like to Get You on a Slow Boat to China
Side by Side
“Get Your Kicks on Route 66” by Nat King Cole! In my view, it’s number one (and fun to sing to yourself).
Eddie Money’s
“Two Tickets To Paradise”
-Mrs.$
Great travel songs by women:
Cowboy, Take me Away – The (Dixie) Chicks
https://youtu.be/MdkIJm65ytM
Wide Open Spaces -The (Dixie)
Chicks
https://youtu.be/dom7VlltBUc
Southland in the Springtime. – Indigo Girls
https://youtu.be/rvEmYnW9WpM
You can Sleep While I Drive – Melissa Etheridge version
https://youtu.be/UMdruvn_i18
Trisha Yearwood version
https://youtu.be/w_h11AdN34E