World Hum’s Top 40 Travel Songs of All Time

12.15.08 | 12:35 AM ET

When we wanted to create a list of the best travel songs, we turned to some of the most knowledgeable and passionate travelers we know: our writers and contributors. We gave them broad voting criteria: If it’s a song about travel or inspires travel or just a song that they must listen to while they travel, it’s eligible.

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After everyone spent intimate time with their iPods, we emerged with World Hum’s top 40 travel songs of all time—and some personal stories about why we all love the travel songs we love.—The editors

MORE ON TRAVEL SONGS: Go straight to Top 10 | Anthony Bourdain’s Subcontinental Homesick Blues | Interactive Map

40) Ramblin’ Man (1973)

Artist: The Allman Brothers Band
Songwriter: Dickey Betts
Fact: It was The Allman Brothers Band’s first and only Billboard top 10 hit; it peaked at No. 2.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: I grew up in New Orleans before Duane and Greg Allman ever put the city in “Ramblin’ Man” but hearing the song now—say, I’m driving the Natchez Trace through Mississippi—puts me in strong mind of the secret backstreets of the French Quarter, of chicory coffee and dark sultry nights with the sassy girls of 1967. Then, when it’s time for leavin’ ... Wanderlust is eternal.—Eric Lucas

39) Roadrunner (1972)

Artist: The Modern Lovers
Songwriter: Jonathan Richman
Fact: The song pays homage to driving Route 128, just outside Boston.—The Guardian
Why I love it: You’re sixteen: you can’t vote, can’t buy booze, can’t buy smokes, you live with your parents and you have to leave for school at the crack of dawn each and every day. Life pretty much sucks. But you can roll down the windows, turn up the music and cruise the strip of your podunk town, and it’s about as good a trip as you’ll ever take.—Alex Basek

38) Sweet Home Alabama (1974)

Artist: Lynyrd Skynyrd
Songwriters: Ed King, Gary Rossington and Ronnie Van Zant
Fact: The notorious “Turn it up!” Ronnie Van Zant utters at the start of the track was unplanned. Van Zant was indeed asking the producer to turn up the volume on his headphones.—Rolling Stone
Why I love it: I’m a native of the American South, and I often turn to regional music when I need solace on the road. This feel-good song about my homeland always picks me up when I’m feelin’ blue.—Leigh Ann Henion

37) Where the Streets Have No Name (1987)

Artist: U2
Songwriters: U2, Bono
Fact: Bono was inspired to write the song after learning that on certain streets in Belfast, Northern Ireland it was possible to determine the religion and wealth of the inhabitants, simply from which side or end of the street they lived. “That said something to me,” he said. “And so I started writing about a place where the streets have no name.”—U2.com
Why I love it: “Streets” is the musical equivalent of lighting a candle and saying a prayer. I play it before commencing any major journey. The organ opening is so ethereal, it is almost other-worldly, while the jangly guitar riffs root you firmly to earth. By the time Bono has finished lamenting tearing “down the walls that hold me inside,” I am halfway out the door.—Stephanie Elizondo Griest

36) Katmandu (1975)

Artist: Bob Seger
Songwriter: Seger
Fact: Katmandu is also the name of a Bob Seger tribute band, which goes so far as to bill itself as “North America’s Premier Bob Seger tribute act.”—Bob Seger Tribute
Why I love it: When this record came out Kathmandu was the epitome of remote destinations and going there a rite of passage; I’ve been listening to this song for 30 years and it still makes me want to pack my bags. —Lynne Friedmann

35) Ramble On (1969)

Artist: Led Zeppelin
Songwriters: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Fact: J.R.R. Tolkein’s “Lord of the Rings” heavily influenced the lyrics, specifically the lines about “Mordor” and “Gollum.”
Why I love it: It’s exuberant, and when I was in my late teens and taking my first unchaperoned trips with friends, I cranked up the song constantly, and I fell in love with the idea of travel—of ‘going ‘round the world’—as an unscripted and spontaneous kind of rambling. —Jim Benning

34) California (1971)

Artist: Joni Mitchell
Songwriter: Mitchell
Fact: In an interview with Cameron Crowe, chatting about writing her “Blue” album, on which “California” was featured, Mitchell says: “At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either.”—CameronCrowe.com
Why I love it: No song captures the feeling of being on the road and longing for home more than “California.” I even named my last book after a line in the song.—Laurie Gough

33) Radar Love (1973)

Artist: Golden Earring
Songwriters: George Kooymans/Barry Hay
Fact: In 2007, NASA played “Radar Love” during a wake-up call to crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantic. The wife of one of the astronauts had requested it. It’s not the first time “Radar Love” has played in space. In 1997, it was also played during a wake-up call, this time to NASA’s Mars Pathfinder.—NASA
Why I love it: It’s hard to believe that a Dutch prog rock band would make one of the best driving songs of all time, but they pulled it off despite the fact it hails from a country without twisting mountain lanes or endless stretches of desert highway. The locomotive drumbeat and ringing ‘70s guitars put me in the passing lane back home to my baby every time.—Alex Basek

32) The Long and Winding Road (1970)

Artist: The Beatles
Songwriters: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Fact: It was The Beatles’ 20th and final No. 1 hit in the United States.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: “It’s about the flip side of travel—not the being gone, but the coming home—and every time I hear it, I’m stabbed with nostalgia. It gives me the same sense of bittersweet relief that I feel when my flight back to Minnesota comes in at night and I can see the first lights of home sparkling beneath the wings. But it makes me picture a home I never had—a white cottage in a green pasture somewhere, an image as sweet as a Mother’s Day card. I always imagined it in Ireland, somehow. Turns out, McCartney had Scotland in mind. Close enough.—Catherine Watson

31) American Girl (1977)

Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Songwriter: Petty
Fact: UGO.com ranked the use of “American Girl” in the movie “The Silence of the Lambs” as No. 5 in its Top 11 Uses of Classic Rock in Cinema countdown.
Why I love it: It isn’t classically travel, but it sounds like such a driving song. Plus I’ve always loved listening to it in far off places: “She couldn’t help thinking that there was a little more to life somewhere else…”—Sarah Schmelling

30) Take Me Home, Country Roads (1971)

Artist: John Denver
Songwriters: Denver, Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert
Fact: Danoff and Nivert were inspired to start writing the song while on a road trip to visit Nivert’s relatives in Maryland. To pass the time they made up a song with lyrics that reflected the “little winding roads” they were driving, which in fact, were not in West Virginia, at all.—Blogcritics Magazine
Why I love it: It’s such a sweet song, this love letter to West Virginia. And Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version about Hawaii proves its universal appeal.—Jim Benning

29) Travelin’ Prayer (1973)

Artists: Billy Joel, Dolly Parton
Songwriter: Billy Joel
Fact: “Travelin’ Prayer” reached No. 77 on the Pop chart in 1973, but in 1999 Dolly Parton won a Grammy Award with a cover.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: It’s the perfect expression of a traveler’s blessing—all the things you want not just for yourself, but for all the travelers you meet—a warm dry place to sleep, ground that’s soft under your feet, and yeah, no airplanes, “cause my baby hates to fly.”—Pam Mandel

28) Truckin’ (1970)

Artist: Grateful Dead
Songwriters: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Robert Hunter
Fact: According to the book Deadbase X: The Complete Guide to Grateful Dead Song Lists, over the course of the Dead’s many tours, “Truckin’” was played 520 times, the eighth most played song.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: The song’s bouncy beat belies its most famous lyric, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”—Eric Lucas

27) Africa (1982)

Artist: Toto
Songwriter: David Paich
Fact: The song’s drum track was inspired by drummer Joe Porcaro’s childhood trip to New York’s World Fair, where he visited the African pavilion and heard tribal drumming for the first time.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: I was still in grade school when Toto hit it big with a song blessing the rains in a mountainous and colorful continent far, far away from the yellowed flatlands of North Dakota. “Africa” inspired my MTV-marinated imagination: I couldn’t fly anywhere without my parents, but I could dream a video where “Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.”—Joanna Kakissis

26) Wagon Wheel (2004)

Artist(s): Bob Dylan/Old Crow Medicine Show
Songwriters: Dylan/Ketch Secor
Fact: The song is based on a partially completed Dylan song.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: What traveler hasn’t felt the heartache of being far away from someone they care about? “Wagon Wheel” perfectly captures the anticipation of reuniting with a loved one after a long journey. Not to mention that the pure Americana feel of the song has helped me overcome homesickness on more than one occasion.—Elyse Franko

25) Ol’ 55 (1973)

Artist: Tom Waits
Songwriter: Waits
Fact: The Eagles covered the song, producing a version that Waits termed “antiseptic.”—Wikipedia
Why I love it: For the same reason I love all Tom Waits’ songs. It’s beautiful and complicated and tragic. It doesn’t make sense, and yet somehow it makes perfect sense. Like poetry. Like the world. Like life.—Frank Bures

24) Leaving on a Jet Plane (1967)

Artists: Peter, Paul, & Mary, John Denver
Songwriter: Denver
Fact: He wrote the song while waiting for a delayed flight at the airport.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: The ballad is undeniably cheesy, but it also earnestly expresses a hard truth about travel: great adventures are often paired with heart-wrenching goodbyes.—Ayaz Nanji

23) Midnight Train to Georgia (1973)

Artist: Gladys Knight & the Pips
Songwriter: Jim Weatherly
Fact: An earlier version of the song by Weatherly was called “Midnight Train to Houston.”—Wikipedia
Why I love it: The plaintive, urgent tone of this song gets me every time, particularly the line “bought a one-way ticket back to the life he once knew.” It’s a compelling testament to the curative powers of home, particularly if you’ve been away for a long time.—Doug Mack

22) Thunder Road (1975)

Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Songwriter: Springsteen
Fact: Novelist and music writer Nick Hornby once wrote that he has listened to “Thunder Road” more than any other song.
Why I love it: It’s impossible to spend more than an hour driving on the New Jersey turnpike without finding a Bruce song on the radio. And hearing the native son singing “Well the night’s busted open these two lanes will take us an-ee-where” always rings like the ultimate road anthem.—Terry Ward

21) When I Paint My Masterpiece (1971)

Artist(s): Bob Dylan, The Band
Songwriter: Dylan
Fact: Elliott Smith covered the song.
Why I love it: “Oh, the streets of Rome, are filled with rubble/ancient footprints are everywhere.” I was 19 the first time I traveled to Rome, and I had never set foot somewhere that felt so tangibly ancient. I wandered mesmerized, touching columns and stones, wrapping my head around history for what truly felt like the first time. That song’s first line perfectly recalls that unforgettable moment.—Valerie Conners

20) Like A Rolling Stone (1965)

Artist: Bob Dylan
Songwriter: Dylan
Fact: In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it the best song of all time.—Rolling Stone
Why I love it: What better lines for a traveler: “How does it feel? To be without any home? Like a complete unknown?” If any one song were my travel mantra this is it.—Nicholas Gill

19) Back in the USSR (1965)

Artist: The Beatles
Songwriters: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Fact: B.O.A.C.—from the first line, “Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.”—refers to the British Overseas Airways Corporation, an early incarnation of British Airways.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: The Beatles manage to include nods to British Airways, communist cuties, The Beach Boys, Russian stringed instruments and Chuck Berry in this wry classic. It gets extra travel-credit for starting and ending with aircraft sounds.—Ayaz Nanji

18) Proud Mary (1969)

Artist(s): Ike and Tina Turner/Creedence Clearwater Revival
Songwriter: John Fogerty
Fact: Fogerty penned “Proud Mary” on the steamboat “Mary Elizabeth.”—Wikipedia
Why I love it: It reminds me of being a kid on cross-country road trips with my family—my parents were big CCR fans. I can still hear “Rolling, rolling, rolling on a river,” and I imagine us rolling down the highway in our Dodge Caravan, feeling something like west-bound pioneers instead of a suburban family for a moment because of that song.—Terry Ward

17) Born to be Wild (1968)

Artist: Steppenwolf
Songwriter: Mars Bonfire
Fact: The song is featured in “Easy Rider,” cementing its association with motorcycles and the road.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: Who can resist Steppenwolf’s raspy plea, “Get your motor runnin’... Head out on the highway”? For putting pedal to metal, letting the wind whip through your hair, and thrilling to the possibility of the open road, there’s no better soundtrack.—Julia Ross

16) Long May You Run (1976)

Artist: Neil Young
Songwriter: Young
Fact: The song is about Young’s first car, a 1948 Buick hearse he called “Mort.”—Exclaim
Why I love it: Young’s ode encapsulates the ups and downs of travel: the vivid experiences, the shared journeys, the highway stretching out to the horizon, and even—or especially—the hiccups along the way.—Newley Purnell

15) Roam (1989)

Artist: B-52s
Songwriters: Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, Robert Waldrop and Cindy Wilson
Fact: Subaru once used the song in an ad campaign in New Zealand.—Wikipedia
Why I love it: The most exuberant invocation to travel ever, and yes, the trip often begins (and in the best cases) ends “with a kiss”—Michael Shapiro

14) King of the Road (1965)

Artist: Roger Miller
Songwriter: Miller
Fact: The song was a favorite of Chris McCandless and plays in Sean Penn’s film adaptation of “Into the Wild,” which chronicles McCandless’s ill-fated Alaska adventure.—New Yorker
Why I love it: Its loping, lazy pace, shabby-motel imagery and devil-may-care theme remind me of my early travel days, zig-zagging back and forth across America by Greyhound bus. It is the essential road-trip song.—Sophia Dembling

13) Tangled Up In Blue (1975)

Artist: Bob Dylan
Songwriter: Dylan
Fact: Dylan told Ron Rosenbaum he wrote the song after a weekend listening to Joni Mitchell’s album “Blue.”
Why I love it: From the old east coast to the great north woods, Bob bounces all over the map singing of lost love, Italian poets and revolution in the air. Whenever I hear “Tangled Up,” my heart drifts right along with it. And in the end, as always, I find myself still on the road headin’ for another joint.—Eli Ellison

12) Runnin’ Down a Dream (1989)

Artist: Tom Petty
Songwriter: Petty
Fact: The song is a mainstay on the professional sports promotional circuit. Petty played it during the halftime show of Super Bowl XLII. 
Why I love it: In addition to the crank-up-the-volume guitar riff, I love this song because the lyrics embody why I travel: workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads, runnin’ down a dream.—Lynne Friedmann

11) Road to Nowhere (1985)

Artist: Talking Heads
Songwriters: David Byrne, Chris Franz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth
Fact: The a cappella intro was added after Byrne decided “the song in itself was embarrassingly simplistic and monotonous.”—Wikipedia
Why I love it: On every trip taken to a new destination, I want to blurt out the essence of what I’m hoping for, anticipating. I’ve always found that feeling best evoked hearing Byrne sing, “There’s a city in my mind, come along and take that ride, and it’s all right, baby it’s alright.”—Valerie Conners

10) Southern Cross (1982)

Artist(s): Crosby, Stills and Nash, Jimmy Buffet
Songwriters: Rick Curtis, Michael Curtis and Stephen Stills
Fact: The song was named after the cross-shaped constellation Crux, which is visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
Why it’s a great travel song: Not only is it the rare pop song that invokes palm-dotted Papeete and the Marquesas, but with its ruminating sailor-narrator on a boat, on a trade wind-fueled reach, the song speaks to anyone who has sailed the South Seas—or, more importantly, ever fantasized about it. It was recorded by Crosby, Stills & Nash on their album “Daylight Again,” but I prefer the live version recorded by Jimmy Buffett; indeed, with its island bars and its hero struggling with relationship problems—“on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away”—the song has all the makings of a Buffett original, even though it’s not.
Why I love it: Beyond its escapist appeal, the song helped make a travel memory. On my first trip to the Southern Hemisphere, somewhere on the South Island of New Zealand, I looked up and saw the twinkling stars of the Southern Cross. The line from the song reverberated in my head: “When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand just why you came this way.” Because I love the song, that moment took on weight. I’ll never forget it.—Jim Benning

9) Me and Bobby McGee (1969)

Artist(s): Roger Miller, Janis Joplin
Songwriters: Kris Kristofferson/Fred Foster
Fact: Joplin recorded her iconic version of the song only a few days before she died in 1970.
Why it’s a great travel song: It might be the best known hitchhiking song, and was most famously sung by Joplin. Her voice has echoed on with the classic line: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” It reminds us both how sweet freedom can be, and just how much we have to lose. Kristofferson wrote the song after burglars trashed his home and stole “what little he had to steal.” He found it liberating, which helped give rise to the spirit of the song. He says it’s about “the double edged sword that freedom is.”
Why I love it: That’s something I’ve felt over and over, out on the road when the pull of home starts to tinge my days, and I become like two people: one who wants to move forward, and the one who wants to go back. The song almost perfectly captures tension between what we yearn to escape with what we love to come home to.—Frank Bures

8) This Land is Your Land (1940)

Artist: Woody Guthrie
Songwriter: Guthrie
Fact: He poached the melody from a Carter Family song, “When the World’s on Fire”
Why it’s a great travel song: In 1940 folk singer Woody Guthrie hitchhiked across the country to New York. Along the way he saw a land he loved—and listened innumerable times to a song he despised: Kate Smith’s version of the Irving Berlin standard, “God Bless America,” was omnipresent on the radio. Guthrie considered it jingoistic hogwash, and penned a response that has become equally famous. “This Land Is Your Land” is a quintessential American song, a love letter to the countryside and people of America.
Why I love it: For me, an inveterate wanderer along Guthrie’s ribbons of highway, “This Land” captures the allure of the U.S. landscape in a beautifully unadorned fashion. Many times I’ve stopped to rest in the diamond deserts and redwood forests, golden valleys and the New York island of the song, and the chorus rolls across my mind whenever I do. Guthrie was witnessing the end of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. The second verse describes wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling, and the song came most distinctly to mind long ago while I was poking around an abandoned homestead in southeast Colorado, the heart of the Dust Bowl. There, in a fenceline buried by windblown dust a half-century before—what’s called a “blow hump”—was the faded blue bumper of an old truck, left behind when an American family had to move on. Now their land is all ours, part of a national grassland; and part of the national story. Just like the song itself. “This Land” is not only Guthrie’s legacy. It’s everyone’s.—Eric Lucas

7) (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 (1946)

Artist: Nat King Cole
Songwriter: Bobby Troup
Fact: In the list of cities in the song, one is listed out of order: Winona.
Why it’s a great travel song: Troup’s bouncy road-trip anthem debuted the year after World War II ended, capturing the spirit of a country itching for renewal—and a little fun. It’s a song inextricably linked to the pre-Interstate era, yet also an enduring expression of the simple joy of going from town to town.
Why I love it: A few years ago, my dad and I drove Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago. It was my first time; he’d gotten his kicks and motored west decades earlier in his 1951 Ford. Together, we hit the cities in the song in reverse order. Barstow. Gallup. Amarillo. Oklahoma City. Joplin. We took turns behind the wheel, talking and laughing and eating road food from the morning into the night. By the time we arrived in Chicago five days and more than 2,000 miles later we’d gotten our kicks, and I got a little extra. I discovered exactly from whom I inherited my wanderlust. Now when I think of “Route 66” I think of my dad.—Michael Yessis

6) Born to Run (1975)

Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Songwriter: Springsteen
Fact: Decades ago, the New Jersey legislature declared “Born to Run” the state’s “Unofficial Youth Rock Anthem.”
Why it’s a great travel song: When Springsteen wrote “Born to Run” at age 24, the song was his last-ditch effort to make it big. “Born To Run” didn’t just become an anthem for the young, but with its beautiful sad lyrics of longing—for the road, for love—it became an adrenaline-packed thrill ride that still lingers decades later for free-sprits everywhere.
Why I love it: As someone who, like the song’s narrator, wanted to escape and hit the road at 20, I carried the song inside me hitchhiking on lonely highways. Back then, I was also “a scared and lonely rider” who had to “find out how it feels.” But the genius of the song is how its meaning changes as you get older. As a writer, one of my themes—maybe the theme of my life—is about the constant search for somewhere new, somewhere better. But I’ve come to realize the myth in somewhere better.

When I listen to the song now, it seems not to be about leaving, but about finding your way home. I’ve been lucky enough to see Springsteen in concert six times, and the last time, I was even luckier because I was in the front row. When he sang “Born to Run”—with the entire arena dancing and shouting the lyrics—I swear he pointed and fixed his gaze right on me for the baby-we-were-born-to-run part for a whole, I don’t know, lifetime? OK, maybe five seconds. But I swear he was saying, I’m finally home, and so are you. —Laurie Gough

5) I’ve Been Everywhere (1959)

Artist(s): Hank Snow, Johnny Cash
Songwriter: Adapted from a song by Geoff Mack
Fact: Mack’s original listed Australian locales, including Brindabella, Boggabilla and Boggabri.
Why it’s a great travel song: This country classic is essentially a gleeful, rapid-fire recollection of places traveled. The song first captured the American imagination when Hank Snow turned it into a U.S. hit using North American (and a few South American) place-names in 1962.
Why I love it: I discovered the song in 1996, by way of Johnny Cash’s Rick Rubin-produced album “Unchained,” where Cash covers Mack’s song alongside other old hits originally written by the likes of Soundgarden, Beck and Tom Petty. In addition to the tune’s slow-fast catchiness, the song reminded me of an eight-month journey I’d taken around North America a couple years prior. I was also impressed that the lyrics mentioned my hometown—Wichita—among its 88 American destinations.

I didn’t truly fall for the song until a few years later, however, when I was writing my first book, “Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel,” in southern Thailand. Though I aimed to discourage obsessive place-counting in the pages of “Vagabonding,” Cash’s manic cataloging of out-of the way destinations filled me with the joy of places visited—and the allure of places I hadn’t yet experienced. I’d like to think that, along with more explicit travel-admonitions from the likes of Walt Whitman and John Muir, the song’s sentiment enlivened the spirit of my first book.—Rolf Potts

4) America (1968)

Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
Songwriter: Paul Simon
Fact: In “Almost Famous,” it’s the song Zooey Deschanel’s character plays to her mother to explain why she’s hitting the road with her boyfriend.
Why it’s a great travel song: Simon begins: “Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together.” Clearly, the song explores huge themes: Looking for America, finding ourselves, the arc of a relationship (as, too soon, that first-line optimism is replaced by him crying his heart out to a sleeping person).
Why I love it: It’s always been more a song about the road trip itself. I fell in love with Simon’s lyrics late in high school, right when I started realizing my tiny world could be left behind and my friends and I began inching our way from Chicago to Wisconsin, to Indiana, even to that “dream to me now,” Michigan. “Laughing on the bus,” all that business with the man in the gabardine suit—it was just the giddiness, the “I Spy” games for semi-grownups that take over when the trippiness of road-tripping kicks in. And, oh, “Kathy I’m lost”—buried near the end of the song, not even in a bridge but a verse—was that moment on the road when the games have stopped, everyone’s quiet and you can’t help but wonder about Life, Love and, yes, all the people in those other cars on the turnpike with exactly the same questions.—Sarah Schmelling

3) Graceland (1986)

Artist: Paul Simon
Songwriter: Simon
Fact: The song, inspired by a road trip Simon took to Graceland with his son, won the Grammy for record of the year in 1987.
Why it’s a great travel song: Simon’s Memphis travel anthem cracked Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Songs list a few years back. It’s one of those pop songs that hits the perfect balance between a bouncy rhythm and more mournful lyrics, and it never fails to keep a road trip rolling along.
Why I love it: I hadn’t thought of “Graceland” as a travel song until I started college, in Halifax. Instead, it had fused with the sounds of the entire album, and the lyrics had passed me by. Then, on a long drive one summer, my college boyfriend mentioned that Graceland had been his childhood song of choice for father-son car trips. “My traveling companion is nine years old,” his dad had sung, and the track had become theirs. I never could get that image of father and son driving together, whether through the Mississippi Delta or along the Nova Scotian shore, out of my head. I was still thinking about it this spring, when I finally made the drive to Graceland myself. I had no traveling companion, and instead of following the river I cut east-west, from Alabama into Mississippi and finally across Tennessee state lines into Memphis. But I played Graceland on repeat nearly the whole way there.—Eva Holland

2) City of New Orleans (1972)

Artist: Arlo Guthrie
Songwriter: Steve Goodman
Fact: Guthrie is the best known performer of the song, but many others have covered it, including Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and David Hasselhoff.
Why it’s a great travel song: The unknown places where abandoned machinery punctuates the landscape. An overnight trip where the sound of the train takes you off to sleep and keeps you awake. “... the train they call the City of New Orleans.” The rhyme and dust and motion of the rails are in this song.
Why I love it: I hear it every time I take a train; every time I see a train. Crushed into my bunk on the night train to Venice I hear, “Halfway home, we’ll be there by morning.” Out the window on the way to Eugene on Amtrak, there they are, the “graveyards of rusted automobiles.” While deciphering the unintelligible stickers instructing me to do ... something on the train from Hanoi, I hear it in my head. “The conductor sings his song again ... Passengers will please refrain.”

Even at home I hear it. When the weather is right, I hear the whistle in the distance and think “Oh, to be gone 500 miles—more even—when the day is done!” The graffittied freight cars, the track bisecting Seattle, I sit at the lowered gate, my car silenced so I can hear the sound of the rails, I sing to the train as it goes by. “Don’t you know me? I’m your native son!”—Pam Mandel

1) On the Road Again (1980)

Artist: Willie Nelson
Songwriter: Nelson
Fact: Nelson wrote the lyrics on the spot when the producer of “Honeysuckle Rose” asked him to write a song about touring for the movie. He was on an airplane.—Rolling Stone
Why it’s a great travel song: “On the road again / Just can’t wait to get on the road again…” The whining, otolaryngologist-challenging voice builds on a Johnny Cash-like rhythm—an irresistible sense of motion. Not even aboard his bio-diesel bus yet, Willie nevertheless can feel it.

“Goin’ places that I’ve never been / Seein’ things that I may never see again…” There, in a tiny nutshell, is the romance of travel and the lure of the open road. Of course, the “road” also could be a hiking trail, a flight plan or the course of a tramp freighter.

And those people clapping along? “We’re the best of friends / Insisting that the world be turnin’ our way….” I’m guessing this line was written before the trip. It’s easy to be “best of friends” then. The hard part is staying that way during a long road trip, particularly if each of you has a different view of how the world should “be turnin’.” 

Why I love it: Twice in the past three years I drove with my wife (still “best of friends”) cross-country from Virginia to Oregon, something I’d always dreamed of doing. As I eased myself into the driver’s seat each morning, even without turning on the radio, a little tune would play on my mental iPod. “Dumdy, dum dum dum….”

Another day of going places where we’d never been. I might hum it as we glided down the freeway ramp. Then louder. Soon we’d be singing—just to be on the road again.—Jerry V. Haines

MORE ON TRAVEL SONGS: Anthony Bourdain’s Subcontinental Homesick Blues | Interactive Map

See next page for the entire list, also rans, methodology and voters.

1) On the Road Again, Willie Nelson (60 points)
2) City of New Orleans, Arlo Guthrie (57)
3) Graceland, Paul Simon (46)
4) America, Simon & Garfunkel (44)
5) I’ve Been Everywhere, Hank Snow/Johnny Cash (42)
6) Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen (42)
7) (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66, Nat King Cole (33)
8) This Land is Your Land, Woody Guthrie (32)
9) Me and Bobby McGee, Roger Miller, Janis Joplin (28)
10) Southern Cross, Crosby, Stills and Nash/Jimmy Buffet (27)
11) Road to Nowhere, Talking Heads (27)
12) Runnin’ Down a Dream, Tom Petty (26)
13) Tangled Up In Blue, Bob Dylan (25)
14) King of the Road, Roger Miller (25)
15) Roam, B-52s (21)
16) Long May You Run, Neil Young (21)
17) Born to be Wild, Steppenwolf (20)
18) Proud Mary, Ike and Tina Turner/Creedence Clearwater Revival (18)
19) Back in the USSR, The Beatles (18)
20) Like A Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan (17)
21) When I Paint My Masterpiece, Bob Dylan/The Band (17)
22) Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen (15)
23) Midnight Train to Georgia, Gladys Knight & the Pips (15)
24) Leaving on a Jet Plane, Peter, Paul, & Mary/John Denver (14)
25) Ol’ 55, Tom Waits (14)
26) Wagon Wheel, Bob Dylan/Old Crow Medicine Show (14)
27) Africa, Toto (13)
28) Truckin’, Grateful Dead (13)
29) Travelin’ Prayer, Billy Joel/Dolly Parton (13)
30) Take Me Home, Country Roads, John Denver (12)
31) American Girl, Tom Petty (12)
32) The Long and Winding Road, The Beatles (12)
33) Radar Love, Golden Earring (12)
34) California, Joni Mitchell (12)
35) Ramble On, Led Zeppelin (11)
36) Katmandu, Bob Seger (11)
37) Where the Streets Have No Name, U2 (11)
38) Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd (11)
39) Roadrunner, The Modern Lovers (11)
40) Ramblin’ Man, The Allman Brothers Band (11)

Also rans: Orinoco Flow (Sail Away), Enya (11 points); Hotel California, The Eagles (11); Take it Easy, The Eagles (10); Wherever I May Roam, Metallica (10); You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, Bob Dylan (10); Freedom of the Road, Martin Sexton (10); Willin’, Little Feat (10); Spirit Voices, Paul Simon (10); Starless Summer Sky, Marshall Crenshaw (10); A Thousand Miles from Nowhere, Dwight Yoakam (10); Road Trippin’, Red Hot Chili Peppers (10); Wayfaring Stranger, traditional (10); Wheels, Cake (10); On the Road to Find Out, Cat Stevens (10); Kill, Soulside (10); Hard Sun, Eddie Vedder (10); The Big Country, Talking Heads (10); Scatterlings of Africa, Johnny Clegg (10); Volare, The Gipsy Kings (10)

Peace Train, Cat Stevens (9 points); Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen (9); Beautiful Day, U2 (9); Moving it Down the Line, Bill Staines (9); How to Fight Loneliness, Wilco (9); Rank Stranger, The Stanley Brothers (9); Travelin’ Man, Ricky Nelson (9); This Must Be the Place, Talking Heads (9); Bron-Yr-Aur, Led Zeppelin (9); The Load-Out and Stay, Jackson Browne (9); Paradise City, Guns N’ Roses (9); No Worries, Hepcat (9); Ramblin’ Man, Lemon Jelly (9); Straight to Hell, The Clash (9); California Dreamin’, The Mamas & the Papas (9); A Sort of Homecoming, U2 (9); Transcontinental 1:30 a.m., Vienna Teng (9); Sentimental Journey, Ella Fitzgerald (9); Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett (9); Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn (9); Last Stop This Town, Eels (9); The Coast, Paul Simon (9)

Interstate Love Song, Stone Temple Pilots (8 points); Passenger Side, Wilco (8); Going to California, Led Zeppelin (8); Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen (8); Ramblin’ Boy, Tom Paxton (8); From Island to Another, Chris Whitley (8); I Left My Wallet in El Segundo, A Tribe Called Quest (8); Hard Travelin’, Woody Guthrie (8); Range Life, Pavement (8); Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad, traditional (8); Panama, Van Halen (8); Soul Meets Body, Death Cab for Cutie (8); Darlington County, Bruce Springsteen (8); Rio, Duran Duran (8); Big Walk, Poi Dog Pondering (8); I Dream a Highway, Gillian Welch (8); Paper Planes, M.I.A. (8); Pure Shores, All Saints (8); She Moves On, Paul Simon (8); Nashville, David Mead (8); Anywhere Is, Enya (8)

Here I Go Again, Whitesnake (7 points); The Message, Grandmaster Flash (7); I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound, Tom Paxton (7); Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots, The Cheers (7); I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, U2 (7); Fly Away, Lenny Kravitz (7); Big World, Joe Jackson (7); Dreadlock Holiday, 10cc (7); Boots of Spanish Leather, Bob Dylan (7); Next Best Western, Richard Shindell (7); Eurotrash Girl, Cracker (7); Northern Sky, Nick Drake (7); Chinatown Bus, Bishop Allen (7); If Everybody Looked the Same, Groove Armada (7); Time to Move On, Tom Petty (7); Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones (7); The Geese of Beverly Road, The National (7); Shoot to Thrill, AC/DC (7); Cross Road Blues, Robert Johnson (7); Raggle Taggle Gypsy, traditional (7); Fast Car, Tracy Chapman (7); Big River, Johnny Cash (7)

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams (6 points); Over the Hills and Far Away, Led Zeppelin (6); Life is a Highway, by Tom Cochrane (6); The Heart of Saturday Night, Tom Waits (6); Del Shannon, Runaway (6); Douce France, Charles Trenet (6); Big Yellow Taxi, by Joni Mitchell (6); Abilene, Dave Alvin (6); One Particular Harbor, Jimmy Buffett (6); Early Morning Rain, Gordon Lightfoot; Ian and Sylvia (6); Just Like Honey, Jesus and Mary Chain (6); Running on Empty, Jackson Browne (6); Songs of a Wayfarer, Gustav Mahler (6); Within You Without You, Sonic Youth (Beatles cover) (6); Traveling Miles, Cassandra Wilson (6); Nantes, Beirut (6); Lodi, Creedence Clearwater Revival (6); Joni Mitchell, Night Ride Home (6); Mull of Kintyre, Paul McCartney & Wings (6); The Bonnie Banks o Loch Lomond, Traditional Scottish song (beautifully sung by the King’s Singers) (6); In God’s Country, U2 (6); The Road Goes on Forever (And the Party Never Ends)—Robert Earl Keen (6); Irish Rover, traditional (6); Leaving Trunk, Taj Mahal (6)

Winter Valley Song, Fountains of Wayne (5 points); Half a World Away, R.E.M. (5); Love Train, O’Jays (5); I Am the Highway, Audioslave (5); Waltz Across Texas Tonight, Emmylou Harris (5); So Far Away, Carol King (5); Levelland, James McMurtry/Robert Earl Keen (5); Sights and Sounds of London Town, Richard Thompson (5); Six Days on the Road, Dave Dudley (5); Kiss Me on the Bus, The Replacements (5); Desperados Waiting for a Train, Guy Clark (5); Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, Bob Dylan (5); Silver Jews, Random Rules (5); Steamtrains to the Milky Way, Danny Wilson (5); East Bound and Down, Jerry Reed (5); One Tree Hill, U2 (5); Exodus, Bob Marley (5); Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty (5); Grace, Jeff Buckley (5)

Waitress in the Sky, The Replacements (4 points); Route 66 Theme, Nelson Riddle (4); Don’t Stop Believin’, Journey (4); Sweet Emotion, Aerosmith (4); Holidays in the Sun, Sex Pistols (4); Tom Sawyer, Rush (4); Faithfully, Journey (4); Should I Stay or Should I Go, The Clash (4); Brand New Set of Wings, Joe Purdy (4); Pancho and Lefty, Willie Nelson (4); Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Dionne Warwick (4); She Moved Through the Fair, traditional Scottish (4); Rearviewmirror, Pearl Jam (4); Oh My Sweet Carolina, Ryan Adams (4); Sail Away, David Gray (4); Left of the Dial, The Replacements (4); Love in Vain, Robert Johnson (4); Istanbul (Not Constantinople), originally recorded by The Four Lads in 1953 (but the most popular today is probably by They Might Be Giants) (4); Hoppipolla, Sigur Ros (4) Over the Rainbow, Judy Garland Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg (4); Don’t Fence Me In, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters (4); Crystal Frontier, Calexico (4); One Night in Bangkok, Murray Head (4); City of Blinding Lights, U2 (4); Englishman in New York, Sting (4); Colorado, Grizzly Bear (4); Turn the Page, Bob Seger (4); Love Shack, B-52’s (4)

Gentle On My Mind, Glen Campbell (3 points); Tiny Dancer, Elton John (the Dave Grohl version) (3); Hello Bonjour, Michael Franti (3); Caravan, Van Morrison (3); I’ll Be Here in the Morning, Townes Van Zandt (3); Going Down the Road Feeling Bad, Woody Guthrie (3); 500 Miles, Peter, Paul and Mary (3); Dans Le Port d’Amsterdam, Jacques Brel (3); My Back Pages, Bob Dylan (3); Gold Soundz, Pavement (3); If I Had A Boat, Lyle Lovett (3); 40 Boys in 40 Nights, The Donnas (3); Waterloo Sunset, The Kinks (3); Wheel in the Sky, Journey (3); Two of Us, The Beatles (3); Basin Street Blues, Louis Armstrong (3); Let’s Get Out of This Country, Camera Obscura (3); Acadian Driftwood, The Band (3); Bamboo Banger, M.I.A. (3); 3x5, John Mayer (3); Rock Island Line, Lead Belly (3); Mysterious Ways, U2 (3)

Hey Porter, Johnny Cash (2 points); Long Long Journey, Enya (2); Hard Road to Travel, Jimmy Cliff (2); L.A. Woman, The Doors (2); Drivin’ My Life Away, Eddie Rabbitt (2); Always on the Run, Lenny Kravitz (2); Les Champs-Élysées, Joe Dassin (2); Chicago, Sufjan Stevens (2); Wild Montana Skies, John Denver with Emmylou Harris (2); The Hobo Song, John Prine (2); Slow Ride, Bonnie Raitt (2); Driftless, Greg Brown (2); California Stars, Billy Bragg & Wilco (2); Have You Ever Seen the Rain?, Creedence Clearwater Revival (2); Come Fly With Me, Frank Sinatra (2); New Routine, Fountains of Wayne (2); Dead + Rural, Handsome Furs (2); We’ve Been Had, The Walkmen (2); Hold Back the Rain, Duran Duran (2); Black Water, Doobie Brothers (2); Float On, Modest Mouse (2); Oh, Shenandoah, traditional (2)

Black Diamond Bay, Bob Dylan (1 point); The Last Resort, Eagles (1); Pilgrim, Enya (1); Under African Skies, Paul Simon (1); Jackson, Johnny Cash & June Carter (1); Six Days on the Road, Dave Dudley (1); Every Day is a Winding Road, Sheryl Crow (1); Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, Dengue Fever (1); Streams of Whiskey, The Pogues (1); I’ll Be Gone, Dwight Yoakum (1); The Long Way Around, Dixie Chicks (1); Going Up the Country, Canned Heat (1); Homeward Bound, Simon & Garfunkel (1); Say Shh, Atmosphere (1); Good to Be on the Road Back Home, Cornershop (1); I Left my Heart in San Francisco, Tony Bennett (1); Back in the U.S.A., Chuck Berry (1); Girls & Boys, Blur (1); Fifty Years After the Fair, Aimee Mann (1); Maps, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (1); Amsterdam, Guster (1); This River is Wild, The Killers (1); New York, U2 (1); Home Sweet Home, Mötley Crüe (1)

Methodology

We asked World Hum contributors and editors to list, in order, what they think are the 10 greatest travel songs. Their top pick received 10 points, their No. 2 pick received 9 points, their No. 3 pick received 8 points, and so on. Tiebreakers: If two or more songs received the same number of points, the song with votes from the most voters scored higher. If two songs received the same number of points and number of voters, the song that received the highest picks from voters scored higher. For instance, a 19-point song that received scores of 10+7+2 beat a song that received scores of 10+6+3.

Voters

Julia Ross, Pam Mandel, Jeff Biggers, Sophia Dembling, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Jerry V. Haines, Emily Stone, Liz Sinclair, Matt Villano, Nicholas Gill, Catherine Watson, Terry Ward, Lynne Friedmann, Eva Holland, Rolf Potts, Peter Delevett, Leigh Ann Henion, Eric Lucas, Laurie Gough, Peter Wortsman, Doug Mack, Eli Ellison, Newley Purnell, Ben Keene, Sarah Schmelling, Kate Hahn, Alex Basek, Michael Shapiro, Joanna Kakissis, Jim Benning, Laurel D’Agenais, Elyse Franko, Kevin Fay, Michael Yessis, Valerie Conners, Ayaz Nanji, Frank Bures, Bronwen Dickey, Lola Akinmade.

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