How to make a road trip playlist

A long drive turns music into the soundtrack of a small adventure. Years later, a certain song can bring back a whole road: the heat, the snacks on the dashboard, who was asleep in the back. A good road trip playlist doesn’t need to be clever. It needs to fit the road, give everyone in the car something they love, and never leave the driver fighting to stay awake.

Plan it by stretches, not as one long list

A trip has a shape, and the music works best when it follows it. Instead of one endless playlist, think of three or four short tapes, one for each part of the day.

• Setting off: big, familiar singalongs. Everyone is excited, nobody is tired yet, and songs the whole car knows get the trip going.
• The long middle: steady, mid-tempo songs that leave room for talking, looking out of the window and the odd snack stop. This is where new discoveries fit best.
• Sunset and after dark: calmer and more atmospheric. Synths, soft rock and ballads suit headlights and empty roads.
• Arriving: save one song for the last few minutes. It turns the end of the drive into a small moment.

Give everyone a turn

Arguments over the music are a road trip tradition, but they’re easy to avoid. Let each person add a few songs before you leave, or take turns choosing one song each. Mixing decades helps too: a car with parents, teenagers and friends can share a tape that goes from the sixties to last summer, as long as every song is one somebody loves.

Keep the driver in mind

The driver’s comfort comes first. Avoid long runs of very slow, quiet songs on a tiring stretch, and keep the volume low enough to hear the road, other cars and any sirens. Set the music up before you leave, and let a passenger be the DJ, so nobody touches a phone while driving.

Plan for no signal

Mountain roads, islands and border crossings are full of places with no mobile signal, and data abroad can be expensive. If your streaming service lets you save music offline, download the playlists before you go. A silent car halfway up a mountain is a long, quiet half hour.

How much music you need

A twelve-song tape lasts roughly forty-five minutes to an hour, so a four-hour drive needs four or five. That’s another reason to make a short tape for each stretch rather than one huge list: it keeps every part of the trip fresh, and you can switch tapes when the mood in the car changes.

Let the place play a part

Driving through another country is a great time to hear its music. A tape of Greek summer songs on an island road, or Russian guitar songs on the way to a dacha, can make the trip feel more like the place you’re in. Just say it in your mood, like “driving along the Greek coast in summer, Greek songs only”, and the whole tape will follow.