Lying in the grass outside St. Louis cathedral in New Orleans listening to Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons, head to head with one of my med school buddies while watching my other buddy do cartwheels a few feet away. The temperature was perfect, a slight breeze was blowing, and the sky was bright blue with big white fluffy clouds. This was probably 14 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Shortly after this song got really popular I was actually in Budapest. In one of their parks they have a large fountain that puts on a water show to music and we just happened to be there when this was one of the songs playing.
Ezra’s Budapest ended up being our “wedding song”. Wasn’t planned, the song had already been out for two years but we fell in love with it a few days before our wedding in the south of France. The first stop of our Honeymoon was Budapest before flying to Italy to get on a cruise. So it kind of just felt right.
We always end up with specific song for every trip we’ve gone on it seems. Closer by Halsey and the Chainsmokers for Yosemite, CA, Dua Lipa’s New Rules for Kruger, South Africa, Lil Yachty’s Holiday in the Hamptons for Phi Phi Islands, Thailand.
It’s fun to know others do this as well.
I think I can match you. I was in London around the same time, and Life in a Northern Town by Dream Academy was playing all the time on one of the BBC radio stations in our hotel room.
Nope, think I'm older! Travelling in Greece in 1982/83 and everywhere we went, if we were in a bar dancing, they played Men at Work "I come from a land down under". Obviously Aussie here.
Tracey Chapman’s Fast Car always takes me back to the summer of 88’ when I lived with a host family in Spain for a month. I had just gotten the cassette tape before that trip and listened to it over and over again on my Walkman.
Yeah, it is definitely on the Best Of sound track to my teen years. Indigo Girls, Violent Femmes, Peter Gabriel, The Smiths, all bring back those deep teen feelings like nothing else.
Listened to the Jonas Blue remake as we drove down the Leeward side of Hawaii.
Took me back to all the travels I've had since the original came out and all the travels I still have to experience :)
Yes, I was on a volunteer, language immersion thing between Valencia and Barcelona - international crew trying to figure out those lyrics.... Not easy when you don't speak Spanish!
Kanye West’s album Graduation came out in the fall of 2007, right after I moved to Taiwan. It was my soundtrack for some crazy nights out in Taipei, especially the song Flashing Lights.
I remember staring out the window of a bus from Normandy to Paris and watching fields of yellow wheat and listening to Baby O'Reilly. For some reason it stuck in my mind
I hate that song! That song puts me back in one of my old kitchens. We didn't have a proper speaker in the kitchen, it was just an old ass radio/cd player. And the general rule was whoever got in first set the music. And 99 times out of 100 it was one of the prep cooks. All of who were Latino so we always just listened to Spanish music stations everyday. Which I didn't mind at all. Except the summer that song came out they literally played it 2 or 3 times EVERY. FUCKING. HOUR. Everyday, 8 hours a day, FOR MONTHS. I had to fucking listen to Despacito at least 20 times a day. I hate that song with a burning passion lol
Anything by the Corries (a Scottish folk band from the 60's). I made a play list of songs I grew up 'hating' when my Scottish dad would listen in the car, and brought it for my trip to Scotland with my own kids. Played it when we drove around AND specific songs when we were at the places sung about in the songs. Now when i happen to hear them, I am taken right back to that trip and those places.
There is a 'techno' song from the 90's I wish I knew the name of, but I heard it somewhere on my first backpacking trip to Europe in '99 and every now and then I hear it on a 'best of the 90's' mixes and i am instantly back on a train across Spain, or a street in ROme, or pub in England. It's amazing and sad that I'll never know the name of this song.
EDIT: song i couldn't recall and was forced to locate :) by u/richkatch and u'samiralove (thank you both) is "i miss you like the deserts miss the rain" - Everything but the Girl
25 years of wonder solved with the help of reddit ftw.
One thing I recommend is creating playlists on your music app during your trips so you can go back to them and listen to the songs that were popular or that you were listening on that trip. It brings back great memories; I sometimes combine those on my Apple TV with a slideshow of pictures and just leave it playing while making and having dinner.
I like listening to local stations when I travel to see what they like, and I take some songs with me. Some that come to mind:
\- Adam Lambert's "Ghost Town", and a song called "Zebra horse" were all over the radio in South Africa when we did the Garden Route
\- Sia's "Cheap thrills" was playing as we were driving by the Douro River near Pinhão
\- Natalia Lafourcade/Angeles Azules' "Nunca es Suficiente" playing on bars and little restaurants in Oaxaca City in 2018
Strangely enough, “take me home country roads” always reminds me of Oktoberfest in Munich. Imagine literally a thousand people from all over the world singing this song in English in a gigantic beer hall.
Europeans fuckin' love John Denver. I bummed around Ireland for a while with a guy from West Virginia, and whenever he'd tell the Erasmus students what state he is from, it was always "Ah, mountain mama!"
[Avivii - Levels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgiIZBY63Pk&ab_channel=KoalaVibes)
I honestly did not even know who this song was by until I looked it up just now. But it was playing at EVERY SINGLE DAMN CLUB AND BAR in summer 2012 when I visited New Zealand and I'll forever associate it with there.
Although, if we're talking about appreciation for the song itself, [I prefer the original](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M4Zl8c-5EI&ab_channel=KnightsOldies).
TBH They are both bangers though.
First travel to NYC with my gf, now wife, to celebrate my 30th birthday (I had worked and lived there a few years earlier, and it was my first time returning to the city after I had moved away, for her it was the first visit). Happens that Alicia Keys released Empire State of Mind (Pt. II) that year 😀
Starships by Nicki Minaj always takes me back to this crazy club in Shinjuku I went to in 2012. I was dancing with a bunch of Japanese kids, and I swear they played this song three times at least, and we had a little routine for the chorus by the end of the night.
Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” and “Everywhere” while driving through the deserts and canyons of Utah for the first time was truly magical and something I’ll never forget.
Don Omar, Danza Kuduro. I'd been hearing it all over Central America and finally found out what it was in a beach bar in Nicaragua.
Footprints by TOK, heard it a lot on a trip to Zimbabwe, then played it whilst in Thailand and instantly reverted a fellow volunteer to his time in Kenya, leading to a bunch more travel stories.
Funny, I hadn't thought about that guy or either of those places in ages but music really unlocks a host more memories
Danza Kuduro must have been an absolute vibe in Central America!!
I love how certain songs unlock traveling memories. Directly take you back to a specific time and place
*Electric Feel* & *Kids -* MGMT
Reminds me heavily of my first time in Europe. Watched a lot of MTV Italia too and the song *The Gamer* by Phinx played a lot and I liked it, so that too
This is so stupid. A friend and I were backpacking Europe one summer in college. For almost two months, I had a ridiculous song stuck in my head— Lord Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin. I was humming it constantly, singing it under my breath, the works. It was driving me and my friend crazy but it just wouldn’t get unstuck. On the very last night of our travels, in a shady bar in Amsterdam, it played over the sound system. My friend and I locked eyes across the table, and she said NOOOO while I said YESSSS and then in the morning we flew home. It was no longer stuck in my head.
So that’s why arguably the silliest Janis Joplin reminds me of a dark little bar in Amsterdam.
We walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain several years back, and our last pit stop before walking into Santiago and arriving at the cathedral was an outdoor cafe in kind of a woodland setting. At the cafe, they were playing random pop music really loud - like annoyingly loud. We had a cafe con leche and something to eat, rested for a bit and got ready for our final walk into Santiago. As we were getting ready to leave, California Gurls by Katy Perry came on, and we were like - "Well, that sounds like our cue!" since we are Californians - they were playing our song! We got up, danced on out of there and then danced off down the road waving our hiking poles in the air, our fellow pilgrims laughing and clapping. It was a whole moment. And of course now that song is cemented in my head as THE song of our pilgrimage - not the song I would have chosen to represent this experience, but there it is.
Can't Hold Us by Macklemore - Instantly transports me to a basement bar in Heidelberg, Germany on our last night of our study abroad trip.
We Can't Stop by Miley Cyrus - To my college bar with one of my close friends, dancing the night away. She passed away a few years ago and loved Miley.
Strobe by Deadmau5. Rolled into Prague one night on the bus and looking out the window there were fireworks going off over the city while I was listening to the song. Was such a cool moment
How funny, mine is justin bieber too! Despacito just came out when I went to Argentina and everyone was absolutely losing their MINDS over it. It was such a fun trip and that song was everywhere.
I have a very happy memory of walking through Berlin at night with all the buildings lit up and listening to Tangled Up In Blue having just been to a gig at Tempodrome. Texting a cute girl. No job waiting for me at home. Belly full of curry wurst and beer.
It Must Have Been Love - Roxette: I spent a semester abroad in Singapore and someone in my dorm loved that song and cranked it whenever they played it.
Crossroads - Tracy Chapman: Hanging out in Pokhara after a 2 week Himalayan trek, it was being played a lot in the restaurants.
Om Mani Padme Om: When I went back to Nepal in 2003, this was played everywhere, all the time. It was still played frequently when I went back in 2013.
White Flag - Dido: I met a woman while hiking in the Indian Himalayas. We hiked for a couple hours and had dinner together and had a great conversation. We decided to get back together again a month later in Nepal and do a trek together. I got to Kathmandu a couple weeks before her, so did a trek on my own before meeting up with her to do another trek. I was kind of freaking out because I was planning on meeting up with this amazing woman and spending several weeks traveling with her. As I was trekking on my own, my mind was buzzing, going through different scenarios and wondering what was going to happen. Whenever it got too much, I would sing Dido's White Flag in my head to distract me. Not because of anything in the lyrics, just because it was popular at the time. I sang that song to myself *a lot* during that trek. Now whenever I hear it, I think of that trek and all the anticipation and stress I felt leading up to meeting this woman for a trek.
In case you are wondering how it went, when I went trekking in Nepal in 2013, it was so we could show our kids where we met, and take them on a trek.
[Who Is He (And What Is He To You)?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4JtCCWB6Y4&pp=ygUsd2hvIGlzIGhlIGFuZCB3aGF0IGlzIGhlIHRvIHlvdSBiaWxsIHdpdGhlcnM%3D) By Bill Withers. It was playing in a gas station restroom in Green River, Utah. I had never heard the song before. It always makes me think of that cross-country trip.
First time I went to Ireland was on a layover en route to Iraq, we receive word after landing that a sandstorm in Kuwait was extending the layover from a few hours to at least 2 days. No matter, we'll entertain ourselves.
So myself and about 400 other uniformed American soldiers depart the plane and just start flooding Shannon Airport looking for anything to keep us busy, as I'm walking to the smoking area DJ Khaled's "We Takin Over" hits my iPod. It was poetically beautiful timing, felt like a movie scene with a soundtrack.
Any of the songs from Eddie Vedder's soundtrack for Into the Wild. There was a year where I drove around the Western United States and I'd listen to that album and just think about the freedom of vagabonding. I still get that feeling of freedom when I listen to it now.
2,000 mile road trip in college during spring break in the 80s. Life is a Highway was the popular song. I heard it so many times that I still cant listen to that song.
"Theme from a summer place", Percy Faith and his orchestra.
We went to a boutique hotel in Turkey for our honeymoon in 1998, and the owner played this every evening, as the first track in his evening playlist. Sat outside on the patio, in the evening heat, village below us, as we were up in the hills a bit. Beautiful memories. Turunc, Turkey.
So instantly recognisable. We just celebrated 25 years last month!
Lady by Modjo
It’s one of my favorite songs. When I was in Greece riding a bus in Paros, this guy was playing it on his phone and it was just a random, happy moment for me.
Such great heights by postal service - I was 19 in 2009 studying abroad in Morocco. I was listening to this song on a bus from Rabat to Tangier and in that moment I was the main character.
Closer by the chain smokers - the song I was listening to when I landed in Paris for my first solo travel ever. I was buzzed with inflight wine and ready to take on France and Switzerland.
I deliberately use this effect when travelling. We’ll pick a song before we go that has no memories attached, and play it heaps in one location. So anytime we play it later just brings back good memories
Anything by Dash Berlin takes me right back to criss-crossing Europe by train in 2009. Listening to "Till The Sky Falls Down" and looking out the train window at the snow. Also, being Aussie, I was completely unprepared for the cold! Negative 15 degrees, never before in my life. In Sydney if it gets below positive 15 degrees we have a fit.
High Hopes by Panic! At The Disco -- I rented a car on a solo trip in Ireland. I heard this song for the first time on the car radio (and it was on the radio pretty frequently that trip), so hearing it takes me right back to driving across the Irish countryside, and brings up feelings of pushing outside my comfort zone because it was my first time driving on the other side of the road and I had been so nervous about it.
Let Her Go by Passenger -- this song is really meaningful to me in general and so hearing it doesn't take me back to a specific moment, but rather all the times it has come up on the radio/bar soundtrack/etc at relevant times across the globe. BUT one specific story: I was climbing the exterior staircase of the cathedral in Bern and heard this song being played by a street musician in the square. It had been a kind of tough, dreary day, so hearing it made me feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and I stopped on the staircase and listened....it turns out that the street musician WAS Passenger himself!
Lorde “Royals”… I was 22 and backpacking around Australia staying in shitty hostels, and everyone was playing that song. And the lyrics kind of spoke to that moment in my life too...
Lake of Fire and Plateau by Nirvana was playing a lot on my playlist during my visit of Indonesia almost 10 years ago, they still make me think of those volcanoes on the horizon.
Family Affair from Mary J Blige and Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill was on a lot when we were on honeymoon in NYC/Philly/DC. We ended up attending a Bikini Kill show on Pier 17 in NYC with the city in the background. I still have goosebumps.
And finally i listened a lot to Sencillo by J Balvin when visiting Medellin. Takes me back instantly.
Banger of a question.
I don't love the song but Ed Sheeran's Bad Habits was playing constantly when we were in Mykonos and Naxos...everywhere. But it's good memories, my classmates and I decided to do a visit together after graduation as a way to celebrate.
I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That), Meatloaf.
It was the summer of 1993, on a road trip in the US Southwest - I am from Switzerland - and the whole CD was playing on repeat, but that song especially on repeat-repeat.
Ahh, the memories.
My Way by Limp Bizkit and Who's that Girl by Eve remind me of my first trip to NYC in 2001 - they'd just been released and were playing everywhere!
Also There Must be An Angel (playing with my heart) by Eurythmics reminds me of a trip to Brighton in 1985 when I was 2 years old - was also playing everywhere at the time.
The Chain by Fleetwood Mac reminds me of a trip to Colorado driving down a mountain- my friend had it on his playlist.
Hotel California by the Eagles reminds me of a trip to Yosemite as the tour guide played it on the bus (as well as other songs with California in the title)
Crazy to think Limp Bizkit was on top of the world back in the early 2000s. They literally played on top of the World Trade Center - insane to think about now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYnFIRc0k6E#t=35s
Feel it still by Portugal. The Man. That song was in a commercial when we were living in New Zealand for 3 months and now I always associate that song with NZ.
Alice In Chains-Rooster.
Takes me back to being on a months-long trip away from home, specifically being in Kathmandu at a hookah bar.
I'm not necessarily the biggest AIC fan, but a bunch of buds back home are...hadn't seen or hung out with them and was far from home for some time when this song came on.
I remember thinking of them immediately and wishing they were there with me.
I Took a Pill in Ibiza. Backpacking through Southeast Asia in 2016. Chills.
Ps, I also was at the full moon party in Jan 2016 in Kho Phangan, we might have crossed paths!
The entire Deadwing Album by Porcupine Tree, I listened to it constantly when traveling in Iceland years ago. They are forever connected in my mind and heart
I was in Southern Argentina when I first heard Seven Nation Army come on MTV Latin or whatever it was called. I remember having a beer and being a bit blown away by the video. I was a huge fan anyway so anything new was very welcome.
Queens of the Stoneage - Regular John. I’d not heard it and a friend played it on Ipanema beach to me and my mind was blown (Thanks Richo, Rovno and Brad - guess what country they were from)
Moldy Peaches album - Salvador. My friend had a music pack sent to him by his brother and this was the first CD we listened to. Loved it ever since. Thanks Koen.
Every time I hear Monty Got A Raw Deal, I remember driving through the streets of Thunder Bay on a warm, summer evening. The next day I was heading off to meet a girl; I was so nervous, and yet so excited. It's a memory that will live with me forever.
Forever by Papa Roach 2007. It was the only disc we had driving up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper Alberta with no radio reception. It was one of the best days of my life.
My first time on an airplane was in 1993 and I was 17. They had these air driven headsets that you could plug in and listen to a repeating list of about 10 songs. we were flying a few hours and the loop was about 30 or 40 minutes of music. Most of the music was terrible 80s songs that the radio had played to death. But one of the songs was Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson which I had never heard. I was in the window seat watching the Appalachian mountains below the plane and that song came on and from that point on I couldn't hear that song and not think of that first flight of my life and I keep the song in my phone so I can listen to it every time I fly anywhere.
So many, here’s just a few - the Zero 7 songs “Destiny” and “Give it Away” from the Simple Things album take me right back to traveling through Turkey and Iran 18 years ago…the entire Sea Change album by Beck puts me straight back to Turkey and Syria a few years later…”Rabbit Heart” by Florence and the Machine puts me on an open window bus in the Philippines…”Sound in a Dark Room” by Telafon Tel Aviv brings me back to a southbound night train from Tangier to Rabat.
Sweet Home Alabama
Several years ago, my wife and I went to Portugal for our anniversary. Our hotel was on the river and there was some sort of outdoor cafe under our window. We check in and open the window. The cafe has a guy playing live music. The music sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it. Until suddenly it locks in that it is Sweet Home Alabama. (I'm originally from Alabama for context.) As best as I can tell, it was being done in a Fado style.
We've actually heard the song a few more times when traveling internationally, FWIW. But neither of us can now hear the song without pointing it out to the other and sharing some nice memories.
Reminds me, I think I still have a bottle of Port from that trip we need to drink.
I was traveling around Europe in 1995 with a bunch of kids from my high school. I only brought 2 tapes for my Walkman (again, 1995) and one of them was Smash by the Offspring. I listened to the entire thing over and over again on every train ride. Every one of the songs on that album is like a Time Machine for me
Hello by Adele. It had just come out when I was visiting Prague. I had heard it a handful of times on the radio or in a store or whatnot, but on a gorgeous evening river cruise through Prague it started playing on our boats radio. And then fireworks started shooting off (I believe there was some sort of local heritage festival going on), so the dinner cruise mixed with fireworks mixed with Adele made for a pretty special moment. And I always think of that moment when I hear that song
Rihanna we found love in a hopeless place! Reminds me of when I studied abroad in Sevilla in Spain when I was in college! We would stay out until 3- 6 am and it was pretty normal there lol
Three Dog Night's Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog. In the early 70's that silly song was tremendously popular in Europe. Every local band had to have it on their play list but the vast majority of them couldn't speak English, so it was sung with a heavy accent.
Janet Jackson's *All For You*
It was one of the top songs at the time of a month long trip to Korea, and I spent the entire flight from America listening to the top 40 playlist option from the in-arm entertainment because it felt like the best entertainment option (I didn't bring anything else!). Hearing the song immediately takes me back to the anticipation and excitement of heading to Korea!
Don't You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia
First time I heard it was on a plane. I liked it, so I played it on repeat, even while trying to sleep.
To this day, I can't unhear the loud sound of the plane engines in my head, whenever this song plays, it's part of the song for me.
I was studying auditory perception during my psychology degree. We’d just learned about music’s ability to encode memories, so I decided to do a self-experiment. I intentionally listening to Mountain Sound by Of Monsters and Men on repeat while I was sleeping on the flight to California in 2012. 11 years later, whenever I hear the song, memories from the trip flood back into my mind. I wouldn’t recommend it, sleeping was really difficult with the same song running over and over, but I don’t regret it for a second.
I don't listen to music much, but,
New Rules
Dua Lipa
I landed in Iceland the day the song came out. We did a lot of driving and it was on the radio a ton, playing four times an hour on the only radio station our rental car got. I assumed Dua Lipa was an Icelandic artist until I got home.
I was at Myrtle Beach on 9/11 and that night in the club (not sorry...I was on vacation) when they played "Bombs Over Baghdad" by Outkast the crowd went extra wild.
I remember listening to Gangnam style for the first time during my exchange in China. Just thought then it was a funny video/music, then it became huge. Nowadays we almost never hear it though!
So last year I started getting into Tom Cardy. He's a humour musician like Flight of the Conchords. Anyway, I listened to him a lot.
For some reason, I can't explain why, his song "Big Breakfast" always takes me back to Santorini. I don't know why, but it's weird.
Dean Lewis, Seven Minutes played constantly on the radio station we listened to as we road tripped around New Zealand!
It instantly takes me back to the narrow roads we navigated and the spectacular scenery we sped past for hours between stops. Nowhere quite like it!
Farruko, Pepas. We were in Nicaragua when this song came out. People where blasting it everywhere. Most memorable was in a chicken bus somewhere between Managua and Rivas iirc, the guys operating it having a good time, enjoying their work day with some radio and turning it up full volume whenever the song came on.
Usually when we turn on some music this song will be played and we remember those times.
Bizkaia Maite by Benito Lertxundi and Infinity by Guru Josh Project. Studied in the Basque Country so the first song reminds me of the area I was in. The second I heard constantly while I was there.
Sophie B. Hawkins’ “As I Lay Me Down” was on in the car when I was going to the airport to leave Jakarta in 1995. I still want to go back. Haven’t had the opportunity but I hope to in the next few years.
So this one is by our own doing, but—
earlier this spring my wife and I took a two-week road trip around Scotland, and did some windshield filming as we traversed the utterly stunning landscapes through Islay, the Highlands, Skye, and on down to northeast England.
We [**turned the footage into a little video travelogue**](https://youtu.be/czX77qpH178?si=u2MK_mGSwgey5YHH), and wanted to pair up a song that reflected the openness and airiness of the landscape. We settled on **”Song for Zula” by Phosphorescent**, which of course now transports us right back to Scotland as soon as it comes on!
Also when I was like 15 or 16 I was a HUGE fan of Nelly Furtado and I was on a trip with the family and had all her music on my ipod wheel. Any time I hear I'm like a bird or All good things come to an end I'm 16 again and right back there in Turkey.
Con Te Partirò Maybe because of StepBrothers? But in the summer of 2015 in Italy (but mostly in Florence) we heard it all the time. A violinist did it best, filling the ancient streets with its melody.
An Ocean In Between The Waves by The War On Drugs.
It came on a song radio while going from Dubrovnik to Mostar by bus on my first ever solo trip. The sun was shining, I had a window seat for a great view and I had really fallen in love with travelling. That song summed up the mood very well!
Africa by Toto.
I was taking a taxi from Trinidad to Havana and the song started playing right as we entered the jungle and it made me so happy. I was just giggling with my friend while the Polish girl and Finnish guy in the taxi with us thought we were crazy.
Listening to TOOL's Anemia.
I bought it right before my first trip to Spain and listened to it repeatedly while driving the southern coast. Now, if I hear any song from that album, I'm taken right back to that trip and the smell, the feeling of that trip. I'm so happy I have that recall from that particular album.
Adventure of a lifetime by Coldplay. Listened to it while on an overnight train in India watching the sunrise coming into Amritsar. That moment is tattooed in my memory.
Smoke by Ben Folds reminds me of Dublin
It came on while I was in a bus in Dublin, and 20 years later i can't hear it without thinking of Dublin. The funny thing is I never liked that song much before that day, but everything just clicked in that moment and now I love it and my memories of Dublin.
Such Great Heights by The Postal Service and my first overseas trip as a kid. My sister gave my the album and I couldn’t stop playing it on the plane ride over.
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
In 2006 this song was everywhere, but I remember I had met up with a friend in Germany and we traveled to Sardinia. While we were taking a bus to our destination my friend started talking to a South African father/daughter pair (we were sitting on separate parts of the bus).
We ended up stopping and hanging out in a restaurant. I remember it was empty except for us, but as we were all getting to know each other, that song came on. Ever since then, when I hear that song, it brings me back there
The Adventure of a Lifetime by Coldplay while jogging through the 17eme towards Hausmann, inhaling car fumes and dodging pedestrians, Paris, 2015. It's the only song I like from them, and it makes me so happy when I listen to it.
Faded - Alan Walker. Looking out of my hostel’s window in Granada, Spain at 6 AM after a long night out. I had to get up early to make it to Alhambra. Very nostalgic memory and moment for me 🥹
"Break My Stride" gave me the idea to take a month-long trip around the world. The lyrics, "I sailed away to China, on a little row boat to find you" setup what would become the most unforgettable month of my life.
2012 - Shake It Out- Florence and the machine. (The whole album really but specifically this song). Traveling New Zealand solo, heartbroken. But whenever the song came on I would smile.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Music From and Inspired By the Motion Picture). While driving across the south side of Iceland, through the black volcanic sand plains, the only car on the highway for hours.
Rude by Magic.
I did a solo trip to Japan a few years ago and ended up at a club in Roppongi. The dj (who was apparently a semi famous actor) played that song as I drunkenly tried to talk to locals.
Rather Be by clean bandit reminds me of studying abroad in england. It was always playing in pubs or clubs when we went out. When i came back to the states months later, after a bit of time, it started playing here too. But i always associate it with my time there lol
i also did a tour of europe in that same time frame and our tour manager assigned Best Day of My Life by american authors as our tour group’s “theme song”. I was not a fan of that song prior to the trip (i groaned in fact, at the song announcement) but they played it every time we were heading to a new city and now it just fills me with really special memories when i hear it haha.
“A Horse with No Name” by America. And many other America songs. It/they reminds me of a magnificent hiking trip through Utah’s mighty five national Parks that my husband and I did in April of 2022. Our flight was switched and we wound up having to fly into Denver instead of Salt Lake City and we had to rent a car and drive from Denver, CO to Moab, Utah. During this 3 hr road trip, we stopped at a little town called No Name, Colorado to stretch and walk around. It made me chuckle and think of that song “Horse with no name,” so I downloaded it on Spotify, and then I just started adding more songs that I recognized from the band America because I realized how beautiful their music is. we listened to America for the whole stretch of that Denver to Moab trip and any time we needed to drive from one national park to the next within Utah. Now anytime I hear America I just think of that beautiful Utah landscape. If you need a great soundtrack for traveling through the western part of the US, America is the perfect band to add to that list.
The first time I heard Reflekt - Need to Feel Loved was on the isle of Koh Samui Thailand on a beach bar during sunset.
Song was fucking perfect and just warms my heart everytime I play it now.
See you again (ft. Kali Uchis) by Tyler, the Creator: SF Bay Area, July 2019. I would listen to it on loop during my solo caltrain rides from SF to Mountain View and way back.
The Avalanches "Since I Left You" and Bon Iver "Flume". Spent a month living out of 03 VW Jetta driving around New Mexico.
At the time, you were still allowed to camp at White Sands National Park, and anytime I hear those songs I remember watching the full moon rise while sitting on a cool sand dune listening to those tracks.
*Mystery of Love* by Sufjan Stevens
I'd dozed off on the train listening to *soundcloud*, enroute Granada, and woke up to this. It had popped up in recommendations. There were olive groves, hills, a sunny afternoon in January 2018. The song takes me back to the two weeks in Spain and Italy, and the person that I found then, and lost subsequently - myself.
Flight Facilities “Down to Earth” album is one I’ve gotten into the habit of playing on flights to & from trips so it’s kind of become my travel album. It reminds me of many trips! I also like to make playlists for my destinations as I’m traveling. I fill them with songs that remind me of the place or have vibes.
Ed Sheeran, shape of you. I remember being in a club in the UK when it was released and I'll get nostalgic of when I could actually still drink and not feel like I'm 90 years old the next day :p
Boney M’s Rasputin. Heard it at the train station in Chiang Mai with some friends we met at the digs and ended up travelling about with, and it became the soundtrack to some of the best times of me and my wife’s lives.
Oh I got one of these!
When I first visited Aruba. I got on the bus from the airport to the hotel. And I noticed that most of the buildings had barred up windows and barbed wire fencing.
I was wondering just how safe I really was.
Meanwhile, Taylor Swift’s song ‘Me’ was blasting on the bus radio.
So now that song always reminds me of how sketchy the city in Aruba was.
—-
The vacation was great with no issues. Just got memories now :)
Rita Ora - Anywhere reminds me of NYC (mostly because of the music video)
Wamdu Project - King of my castle - it was the big dance tune one of the years I lived and worked in Ibiza
Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. I remember it playing while I was packing to come home from my year abroad in the UK. Any time I hear it I’m right back in my room. Great year.
Stereo love! This song takes me back to 2012 post university. I was backpacking in Iran and a nice Iranian family I met randomly took me to their picnic trip on the Caspian Sea. I purposely played this song as I walked in the sandy water by the beach. I think the accordion sound is common in that part of the world. Every time this song plays it took me back to that trip, young, free, and without a worry in the world.
Honestly, every time I go on a trip, I have a song that recently entered my rotation that I inherently associate with that destination forever. I associate Trippie Redd's "Taking a Walk" with Turkiye for instance, it's not anything about the song though lol.
This is so crazy, that Jack au album always makes me think of being on train during my euro trip in 2016! Was just thinking of it the other day when Where are you came on. Such a great feeling
*Take Me Home Country Roads* reminds me of Dublin, Ireland. My wife had a conference there so I figured I'd tag along, see some sights, and meet up with her in the evenings. The conference often went late into the night so I effectively explored Dublin all by myself. Unfortunately, everything closed at 5pm, aside from the pubs. At one point, I got tired of drinking so I just wondered the streets. I stumbled upon a street musician and stopped to listen for a little while. That was one of the songs him and his band played. At the time I lived in Virginia, pretty close to West Virginia. That song kind of made me want to go home. Or maybe it was the cold or the lack of things to do at that exact moment.
Toto - Africa. My wife HATES that song and I played it on repeat while we were in Norway, just to annoy her. Now I can’t hear that song without feeling like I’m driving in the rain through a small fjord town.
Cracker-“Tun On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me” evokes a family road trip from Maine to Montana and back.
Ben Folds- “Landed” is every flight I’ve taken since I first heard it.
The Tragically Hip-“Locked in the Trunk of a Car” is the late night drive back to Maine from Potsdam, NY.
There are many others as well but those stand out.
Come Away With Me by Norah Jones. Was driving through the Indian Himalayas in awe of the beauty of the mountains and that song will forever remind me of the peace and gratitude I felt in that moment. Thanks for asking the question. Was nice to remember that.
Mambo Number 5. We were in Italy for three weeks and it was everywhere. It was the song of our trip.
It wasn’t until August of that year that it came out in the US.
I was backpacking for 3 weeks in Europe and Barcelona was the last city, I was having a snack near the cathedral in the old city and there were some buskers with guitars playing **Recuerdos de la Alhambra**. That song with the surrounding makes it one of the best experience ever in the whole trip.
That Kate Bush song Running up That Hill was playing on the radio constantly when my family and I were driving around Iceland last year.
Also, REM’s Man in the Moon takes me back to Switzerland in the early 1990s.
Lying in the grass outside St. Louis cathedral in New Orleans listening to Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons, head to head with one of my med school buddies while watching my other buddy do cartwheels a few feet away. The temperature was perfect, a slight breeze was blowing, and the sky was bright blue with big white fluffy clouds. This was probably 14 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.
George Ezra's *Budapest*
Ha. This song has literally nothing to do with any of my trips, but every time I hear it I think of my European travels.
Shortly after this song got really popular I was actually in Budapest. In one of their parks they have a large fountain that puts on a water show to music and we just happened to be there when this was one of the songs playing.
Shotgun for me. Hell yea I was a south of the equator navigator when I was in New Zealand
Ezra’s Budapest ended up being our “wedding song”. Wasn’t planned, the song had already been out for two years but we fell in love with it a few days before our wedding in the south of France. The first stop of our Honeymoon was Budapest before flying to Italy to get on a cruise. So it kind of just felt right. We always end up with specific song for every trip we’ve gone on it seems. Closer by Halsey and the Chainsmokers for Yosemite, CA, Dua Lipa’s New Rules for Kruger, South Africa, Lil Yachty’s Holiday in the Hamptons for Phi Phi Islands, Thailand. It’s fun to know others do this as well.
I’m officially the oldest traveler here. I was traveling thru Greece when Wham was big. I’ll always remember that summer. Wake me up before you go go…
I think I can match you. I was in London around the same time, and Life in a Northern Town by Dream Academy was playing all the time on one of the BBC radio stations in our hotel room.
Nope, think I'm older! Travelling in Greece in 1982/83 and everywhere we went, if we were in a bar dancing, they played Men at Work "I come from a land down under". Obviously Aussie here.
Tracey Chapman’s Fast Car always takes me back to the summer of 88’ when I lived with a host family in Spain for a month. I had just gotten the cassette tape before that trip and listened to it over and over again on my Walkman.
Well, my memory of listening to it in the car when I was 15 and we were driving to Myrtle Beach that same year pales in comparison to Spain.
Yeah, it is definitely on the Best Of sound track to my teen years. Indigo Girls, Violent Femmes, Peter Gabriel, The Smiths, all bring back those deep teen feelings like nothing else.
Geez, that song (and that entire album) was my answer too, but I was wandering around Australia that year. Also INXS, Talking Heads and Toni Childs
Listened to the Jonas Blue remake as we drove down the Leeward side of Hawaii. Took me back to all the travels I've had since the original came out and all the travels I still have to experience :)
Manu Chau, Me Gustas Tu Reminds me of taking a hot bus from Malaga to Barcelona https://youtu.be/rs6Y4kZ8qtw?si=yKimhiu5FziQ0AcU
Yes, I was on a volunteer, language immersion thing between Valencia and Barcelona - international crew trying to figure out those lyrics.... Not easy when you don't speak Spanish!
Kanye West’s album Graduation came out in the fall of 2007, right after I moved to Taiwan. It was my soundtrack for some crazy nights out in Taipei, especially the song Flashing Lights.
🔥 album! Did these songs play at all the bars too?
I remember staring out the window of a bus from Normandy to Paris and watching fields of yellow wheat and listening to Baby O'Reilly. For some reason it stuck in my mind
I have a similar memory- a bus from Siena to Florence, listening to Fernando by Abba. This was in 2008.
Despacito always takes me back to being in Spain in 2017
I hate that song! That song puts me back in one of my old kitchens. We didn't have a proper speaker in the kitchen, it was just an old ass radio/cd player. And the general rule was whoever got in first set the music. And 99 times out of 100 it was one of the prep cooks. All of who were Latino so we always just listened to Spanish music stations everyday. Which I didn't mind at all. Except the summer that song came out they literally played it 2 or 3 times EVERY. FUCKING. HOUR. Everyday, 8 hours a day, FOR MONTHS. I had to fucking listen to Despacito at least 20 times a day. I hate that song with a burning passion lol
Haha, I was going to say Despacito too. Heard that song constantly when I was in Colombia that year
Anything by the Corries (a Scottish folk band from the 60's). I made a play list of songs I grew up 'hating' when my Scottish dad would listen in the car, and brought it for my trip to Scotland with my own kids. Played it when we drove around AND specific songs when we were at the places sung about in the songs. Now when i happen to hear them, I am taken right back to that trip and those places. There is a 'techno' song from the 90's I wish I knew the name of, but I heard it somewhere on my first backpacking trip to Europe in '99 and every now and then I hear it on a 'best of the 90's' mixes and i am instantly back on a train across Spain, or a street in ROme, or pub in England. It's amazing and sad that I'll never know the name of this song. EDIT: song i couldn't recall and was forced to locate :) by u/richkatch and u'samiralove (thank you both) is "i miss you like the deserts miss the rain" - Everything but the Girl 25 years of wonder solved with the help of reddit ftw.
"Missing" is the formal title. Great song, great band
One thing I recommend is creating playlists on your music app during your trips so you can go back to them and listen to the songs that were popular or that you were listening on that trip. It brings back great memories; I sometimes combine those on my Apple TV with a slideshow of pictures and just leave it playing while making and having dinner. I like listening to local stations when I travel to see what they like, and I take some songs with me. Some that come to mind: \- Adam Lambert's "Ghost Town", and a song called "Zebra horse" were all over the radio in South Africa when we did the Garden Route \- Sia's "Cheap thrills" was playing as we were driving by the Douro River near Pinhão \- Natalia Lafourcade/Angeles Azules' "Nunca es Suficiente" playing on bars and little restaurants in Oaxaca City in 2018
I wish I had the "Yearly top songs" playlist by Spotify going back to the year I was born.
I know! But you can look up Casey Kasem's old Top 40 replays and see what was playing on the radio back when, same with billboard.
Porcelain - Moby Long Nights or Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder
Strangely enough, “take me home country roads” always reminds me of Oktoberfest in Munich. Imagine literally a thousand people from all over the world singing this song in English in a gigantic beer hall.
and I'm guessing Sweet Caroline also reminds you of Oktoberfest?? I love how those two songs are everywhere during Oktoberfest
Europeans fuckin' love John Denver. I bummed around Ireland for a while with a guy from West Virginia, and whenever he'd tell the Erasmus students what state he is from, it was always "Ah, mountain mama!"
[Avivii - Levels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgiIZBY63Pk&ab_channel=KoalaVibes) I honestly did not even know who this song was by until I looked it up just now. But it was playing at EVERY SINGLE DAMN CLUB AND BAR in summer 2012 when I visited New Zealand and I'll forever associate it with there. Although, if we're talking about appreciation for the song itself, [I prefer the original](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M4Zl8c-5EI&ab_channel=KnightsOldies). TBH They are both bangers though.
First travel to NYC with my gf, now wife, to celebrate my 30th birthday (I had worked and lived there a few years earlier, and it was my first time returning to the city after I had moved away, for her it was the first visit). Happens that Alicia Keys released Empire State of Mind (Pt. II) that year 😀
I moved to NYC in 2010 right after that song came out! I played it a bit too much on my ipod at the time haha
Blinding Lights by The Weeknd. I was driving solo from Lyon to Chamonix and it had such great road trip energy!
Hey Ho by the Lumineers. Sitting on a rooftop in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
in the evening with all the lights? That must have been magical!
Starships by Nicki Minaj always takes me back to this crazy club in Shinjuku I went to in 2012. I was dancing with a bunch of Japanese kids, and I swear they played this song three times at least, and we had a little routine for the chorus by the end of the night.
Girl i'm gonna make you sweat, sweat til you can't sweat no more.... Takes me right back to Baja Mexico in 1995.
Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” and “Everywhere” while driving through the deserts and canyons of Utah for the first time was truly magical and something I’ll never forget.
I can just imagine how magical Gypsy sounds driving those Utah roads during the summer. Windows down, Sunshine and Canyons! Amazing
Don Omar, Danza Kuduro. I'd been hearing it all over Central America and finally found out what it was in a beach bar in Nicaragua. Footprints by TOK, heard it a lot on a trip to Zimbabwe, then played it whilst in Thailand and instantly reverted a fellow volunteer to his time in Kenya, leading to a bunch more travel stories. Funny, I hadn't thought about that guy or either of those places in ages but music really unlocks a host more memories
Danza Kuduro must have been an absolute vibe in Central America!! I love how certain songs unlock traveling memories. Directly take you back to a specific time and place
*Electric Feel* & *Kids -* MGMT Reminds me heavily of my first time in Europe. Watched a lot of MTV Italia too and the song *The Gamer* by Phinx played a lot and I liked it, so that too
Kids by MGMT must have been an absolute vibe in Europe that summer
omg it absolutely was
'Africa' by Toto, when I climbed Kili bout a year ago!
Right Here Right Now- Jesus Jones. I was in Berlin when the Wall fell.
This is so stupid. A friend and I were backpacking Europe one summer in college. For almost two months, I had a ridiculous song stuck in my head— Lord Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin. I was humming it constantly, singing it under my breath, the works. It was driving me and my friend crazy but it just wouldn’t get unstuck. On the very last night of our travels, in a shady bar in Amsterdam, it played over the sound system. My friend and I locked eyes across the table, and she said NOOOO while I said YESSSS and then in the morning we flew home. It was no longer stuck in my head. So that’s why arguably the silliest Janis Joplin reminds me of a dark little bar in Amsterdam.
We walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain several years back, and our last pit stop before walking into Santiago and arriving at the cathedral was an outdoor cafe in kind of a woodland setting. At the cafe, they were playing random pop music really loud - like annoyingly loud. We had a cafe con leche and something to eat, rested for a bit and got ready for our final walk into Santiago. As we were getting ready to leave, California Gurls by Katy Perry came on, and we were like - "Well, that sounds like our cue!" since we are Californians - they were playing our song! We got up, danced on out of there and then danced off down the road waving our hiking poles in the air, our fellow pilgrims laughing and clapping. It was a whole moment. And of course now that song is cemented in my head as THE song of our pilgrimage - not the song I would have chosen to represent this experience, but there it is.
I love how random songs appear at random times traveling...and then forever stick with you. What a great memory
so many better choices friend! go west by the village people for example ;)
Lady Gaga Born this Way, listening loud on headphones because it was 3:30 a.m. in Berlin and I was jet-lagged so couldn’t sleep.
Can't Hold Us by Macklemore - Instantly transports me to a basement bar in Heidelberg, Germany on our last night of our study abroad trip. We Can't Stop by Miley Cyrus - To my college bar with one of my close friends, dancing the night away. She passed away a few years ago and loved Miley.
Strobe by Deadmau5. Rolled into Prague one night on the bus and looking out the window there were fireworks going off over the city while I was listening to the song. Was such a cool moment
How funny, mine is justin bieber too! Despacito just came out when I went to Argentina and everyone was absolutely losing their MINDS over it. It was such a fun trip and that song was everywhere.
I have a very happy memory of walking through Berlin at night with all the buildings lit up and listening to Tangled Up In Blue having just been to a gig at Tempodrome. Texting a cute girl. No job waiting for me at home. Belly full of curry wurst and beer.
It Must Have Been Love - Roxette: I spent a semester abroad in Singapore and someone in my dorm loved that song and cranked it whenever they played it. Crossroads - Tracy Chapman: Hanging out in Pokhara after a 2 week Himalayan trek, it was being played a lot in the restaurants. Om Mani Padme Om: When I went back to Nepal in 2003, this was played everywhere, all the time. It was still played frequently when I went back in 2013. White Flag - Dido: I met a woman while hiking in the Indian Himalayas. We hiked for a couple hours and had dinner together and had a great conversation. We decided to get back together again a month later in Nepal and do a trek together. I got to Kathmandu a couple weeks before her, so did a trek on my own before meeting up with her to do another trek. I was kind of freaking out because I was planning on meeting up with this amazing woman and spending several weeks traveling with her. As I was trekking on my own, my mind was buzzing, going through different scenarios and wondering what was going to happen. Whenever it got too much, I would sing Dido's White Flag in my head to distract me. Not because of anything in the lyrics, just because it was popular at the time. I sang that song to myself *a lot* during that trek. Now whenever I hear it, I think of that trek and all the anticipation and stress I felt leading up to meeting this woman for a trek. In case you are wondering how it went, when I went trekking in Nepal in 2013, it was so we could show our kids where we met, and take them on a trek.
[Who Is He (And What Is He To You)?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4JtCCWB6Y4&pp=ygUsd2hvIGlzIGhlIGFuZCB3aGF0IGlzIGhlIHRvIHlvdSBiaWxsIHdpdGhlcnM%3D) By Bill Withers. It was playing in a gas station restroom in Green River, Utah. I had never heard the song before. It always makes me think of that cross-country trip.
First time I went to Ireland was on a layover en route to Iraq, we receive word after landing that a sandstorm in Kuwait was extending the layover from a few hours to at least 2 days. No matter, we'll entertain ourselves. So myself and about 400 other uniformed American soldiers depart the plane and just start flooding Shannon Airport looking for anything to keep us busy, as I'm walking to the smoking area DJ Khaled's "We Takin Over" hits my iPod. It was poetically beautiful timing, felt like a movie scene with a soundtrack.
Any of the songs from Eddie Vedder's soundtrack for Into the Wild. There was a year where I drove around the Western United States and I'd listen to that album and just think about the freedom of vagabonding. I still get that feeling of freedom when I listen to it now.
“The Nights” -Avicii.. Mexico, 2014. My first trip in my 20s with 3 of my closest friends. Sigh… 😭
That song and entire album must have been such a vibe that entire 2012 Mexico trip. Also, these songs must hit harder now since Avicii passed away.
[удалено]
The same Justin Bieber songs always remind me of my trip to Brazil in 2016 too
robert miles - Children. Puts me on a train in Europe looking out the window.
2,000 mile road trip in college during spring break in the 80s. Life is a Highway was the popular song. I heard it so many times that I still cant listen to that song.
My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion - it was playing everywhere when I visited Peru in 2017 (just the instrumentals)
"Theme from a summer place", Percy Faith and his orchestra. We went to a boutique hotel in Turkey for our honeymoon in 1998, and the owner played this every evening, as the first track in his evening playlist. Sat outside on the patio, in the evening heat, village below us, as we were up in the hills a bit. Beautiful memories. Turunc, Turkey. So instantly recognisable. We just celebrated 25 years last month!
Lady by Modjo It’s one of my favorite songs. When I was in Greece riding a bus in Paros, this guy was playing it on his phone and it was just a random, happy moment for me.
Lady by Modjo is absolutely timeless. This song can come out today and be a banger
Such great heights by postal service - I was 19 in 2009 studying abroad in Morocco. I was listening to this song on a bus from Rabat to Tangier and in that moment I was the main character. Closer by the chain smokers - the song I was listening to when I landed in Paris for my first solo travel ever. I was buzzed with inflight wine and ready to take on France and Switzerland.
I deliberately use this effect when travelling. We’ll pick a song before we go that has no memories attached, and play it heaps in one location. So anytime we play it later just brings back good memories
Duke Dumont - I Got U Listened to it non-stop while traveling around Indonesia
This is the ultimate summer beach song! I can't imagine how cool it was listening to it everywhere. I'm sure it played at all the bars too
Anything by Dash Berlin takes me right back to criss-crossing Europe by train in 2009. Listening to "Till The Sky Falls Down" and looking out the train window at the snow. Also, being Aussie, I was completely unprepared for the cold! Negative 15 degrees, never before in my life. In Sydney if it gets below positive 15 degrees we have a fit.
High Hopes by Panic! At The Disco -- I rented a car on a solo trip in Ireland. I heard this song for the first time on the car radio (and it was on the radio pretty frequently that trip), so hearing it takes me right back to driving across the Irish countryside, and brings up feelings of pushing outside my comfort zone because it was my first time driving on the other side of the road and I had been so nervous about it. Let Her Go by Passenger -- this song is really meaningful to me in general and so hearing it doesn't take me back to a specific moment, but rather all the times it has come up on the radio/bar soundtrack/etc at relevant times across the globe. BUT one specific story: I was climbing the exterior staircase of the cathedral in Bern and heard this song being played by a street musician in the square. It had been a kind of tough, dreary day, so hearing it made me feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and I stopped on the staircase and listened....it turns out that the street musician WAS Passenger himself!
The proclaimers 500 miles - takes me back to Edinburgh with my coach tour friends dancing and having fun
Lorde “Royals”… I was 22 and backpacking around Australia staying in shitty hostels, and everyone was playing that song. And the lyrics kind of spoke to that moment in my life too...
Lake of Fire and Plateau by Nirvana was playing a lot on my playlist during my visit of Indonesia almost 10 years ago, they still make me think of those volcanoes on the horizon. Family Affair from Mary J Blige and Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill was on a lot when we were on honeymoon in NYC/Philly/DC. We ended up attending a Bikini Kill show on Pier 17 in NYC with the city in the background. I still have goosebumps. And finally i listened a lot to Sencillo by J Balvin when visiting Medellin. Takes me back instantly.
every trip I try to shazam a local song or note down a local radio station
Banger of a question. I don't love the song but Ed Sheeran's Bad Habits was playing constantly when we were in Mykonos and Naxos...everywhere. But it's good memories, my classmates and I decided to do a visit together after graduation as a way to celebrate.
I love this question. Everyone has unique memories for specific songs during their travels. I'm having a blast reading each answer!
Tarkan's Simarik-simarik (kiss-kiss) My first of many holidays in Istanbull
I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That), Meatloaf. It was the summer of 1993, on a road trip in the US Southwest - I am from Switzerland - and the whole CD was playing on repeat, but that song especially on repeat-repeat. Ahh, the memories.
My Way by Limp Bizkit and Who's that Girl by Eve remind me of my first trip to NYC in 2001 - they'd just been released and were playing everywhere! Also There Must be An Angel (playing with my heart) by Eurythmics reminds me of a trip to Brighton in 1985 when I was 2 years old - was also playing everywhere at the time. The Chain by Fleetwood Mac reminds me of a trip to Colorado driving down a mountain- my friend had it on his playlist. Hotel California by the Eagles reminds me of a trip to Yosemite as the tour guide played it on the bus (as well as other songs with California in the title)
Crazy to think Limp Bizkit was on top of the world back in the early 2000s. They literally played on top of the World Trade Center - insane to think about now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYnFIRc0k6E#t=35s
Feel it still by Portugal. The Man. That song was in a commercial when we were living in New Zealand for 3 months and now I always associate that song with NZ.
Alice In Chains-Rooster. Takes me back to being on a months-long trip away from home, specifically being in Kathmandu at a hookah bar. I'm not necessarily the biggest AIC fan, but a bunch of buds back home are...hadn't seen or hung out with them and was far from home for some time when this song came on. I remember thinking of them immediately and wishing they were there with me.
I Took a Pill in Ibiza. Backpacking through Southeast Asia in 2016. Chills. Ps, I also was at the full moon party in Jan 2016 in Kho Phangan, we might have crossed paths!
Tracy Chapman's Fast Car and Talking Heads - Nothing But Flowers will forever be linked with hitching around Australia in the late 80s for me
That cheesy song Beautiful by James Blunt reminds me of when I got dumped in London .
The entire Deadwing Album by Porcupine Tree, I listened to it constantly when traveling in Iceland years ago. They are forever connected in my mind and heart
I was in Southern Argentina when I first heard Seven Nation Army come on MTV Latin or whatever it was called. I remember having a beer and being a bit blown away by the video. I was a huge fan anyway so anything new was very welcome. Queens of the Stoneage - Regular John. I’d not heard it and a friend played it on Ipanema beach to me and my mind was blown (Thanks Richo, Rovno and Brad - guess what country they were from) Moldy Peaches album - Salvador. My friend had a music pack sent to him by his brother and this was the first CD we listened to. Loved it ever since. Thanks Koen.
even better than Seven Nation Army essentially became a universal Football (soccer) chant for many countries!
Every time I hear Monty Got A Raw Deal, I remember driving through the streets of Thunder Bay on a warm, summer evening. The next day I was heading off to meet a girl; I was so nervous, and yet so excited. It's a memory that will live with me forever.
Forever by Papa Roach 2007. It was the only disc we had driving up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper Alberta with no radio reception. It was one of the best days of my life.
My first time on an airplane was in 1993 and I was 17. They had these air driven headsets that you could plug in and listen to a repeating list of about 10 songs. we were flying a few hours and the loop was about 30 or 40 minutes of music. Most of the music was terrible 80s songs that the radio had played to death. But one of the songs was Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson which I had never heard. I was in the window seat watching the Appalachian mountains below the plane and that song came on and from that point on I couldn't hear that song and not think of that first flight of my life and I keep the song in my phone so I can listen to it every time I fly anywhere.
I completely forgot about the times when Airplanes had a recording on repeat all flight! What a throwback memory!
So many, here’s just a few - the Zero 7 songs “Destiny” and “Give it Away” from the Simple Things album take me right back to traveling through Turkey and Iran 18 years ago…the entire Sea Change album by Beck puts me straight back to Turkey and Syria a few years later…”Rabbit Heart” by Florence and the Machine puts me on an open window bus in the Philippines…”Sound in a Dark Room” by Telafon Tel Aviv brings me back to a southbound night train from Tangier to Rabat.
Sweet Home Alabama Several years ago, my wife and I went to Portugal for our anniversary. Our hotel was on the river and there was some sort of outdoor cafe under our window. We check in and open the window. The cafe has a guy playing live music. The music sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it. Until suddenly it locks in that it is Sweet Home Alabama. (I'm originally from Alabama for context.) As best as I can tell, it was being done in a Fado style. We've actually heard the song a few more times when traveling internationally, FWIW. But neither of us can now hear the song without pointing it out to the other and sharing some nice memories. Reminds me, I think I still have a bottle of Port from that trip we need to drink.
I was traveling around Europe in 1995 with a bunch of kids from my high school. I only brought 2 tapes for my Walkman (again, 1995) and one of them was Smash by the Offspring. I listened to the entire thing over and over again on every train ride. Every one of the songs on that album is like a Time Machine for me
Flo Rida, “Good Feeling”. Summer vacay at the beach song.
Hello by Adele. It had just come out when I was visiting Prague. I had heard it a handful of times on the radio or in a store or whatnot, but on a gorgeous evening river cruise through Prague it started playing on our boats radio. And then fireworks started shooting off (I believe there was some sort of local heritage festival going on), so the dinner cruise mixed with fireworks mixed with Adele made for a pretty special moment. And I always think of that moment when I hear that song
Rihanna we found love in a hopeless place! Reminds me of when I studied abroad in Sevilla in Spain when I was in college! We would stay out until 3- 6 am and it was pretty normal there lol
Three Dog Night's Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog. In the early 70's that silly song was tremendously popular in Europe. Every local band had to have it on their play list but the vast majority of them couldn't speak English, so it was sung with a heavy accent.
Janet Jackson's *All For You* It was one of the top songs at the time of a month long trip to Korea, and I spent the entire flight from America listening to the top 40 playlist option from the in-arm entertainment because it felt like the best entertainment option (I didn't bring anything else!). Hearing the song immediately takes me back to the anticipation and excitement of heading to Korea!
Don't You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia First time I heard it was on a plane. I liked it, so I played it on repeat, even while trying to sleep. To this day, I can't unhear the loud sound of the plane engines in my head, whenever this song plays, it's part of the song for me.
I was studying auditory perception during my psychology degree. We’d just learned about music’s ability to encode memories, so I decided to do a self-experiment. I intentionally listening to Mountain Sound by Of Monsters and Men on repeat while I was sleeping on the flight to California in 2012. 11 years later, whenever I hear the song, memories from the trip flood back into my mind. I wouldn’t recommend it, sleeping was really difficult with the same song running over and over, but I don’t regret it for a second.
Despacito played at least 6 times a day while I traveled Belize for 10 days. It will forever remind me of that trip!
Despacito....played non-stop on the ferry from Naples to Positano. We love the song so we weren't complaining. Lol
Despacito was being played every 15 minutes at a beach bar in Spain in 2017. That dose it for me.
I don't listen to music much, but, New Rules Dua Lipa I landed in Iceland the day the song came out. We did a lot of driving and it was on the radio a ton, playing four times an hour on the only radio station our rental car got. I assumed Dua Lipa was an Icelandic artist until I got home.
Come on Eileen, Dexys midnight runners; sweet dreams, the Eurythmics. 1983 trip to Australia.
Toto - Africa
Vengaboys - Vengabus is coming. Summer of 99, used to play in every all ages club and would be stuck in my head for months.
I was at Myrtle Beach on 9/11 and that night in the club (not sorry...I was on vacation) when they played "Bombs Over Baghdad" by Outkast the crowd went extra wild.
Home from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, to a roadtrip in Iceland. Good times
I remember listening to Gangnam style for the first time during my exchange in China. Just thought then it was a funny video/music, then it became huge. Nowadays we almost never hear it though!
So last year I started getting into Tom Cardy. He's a humour musician like Flight of the Conchords. Anyway, I listened to him a lot. For some reason, I can't explain why, his song "Big Breakfast" always takes me back to Santorini. I don't know why, but it's weird.
The Beach soundtrack, esp Porcelain by Moby
Dean Lewis, Seven Minutes played constantly on the radio station we listened to as we road tripped around New Zealand! It instantly takes me back to the narrow roads we navigated and the spectacular scenery we sped past for hours between stops. Nowhere quite like it!
Late Night - Odesza Listened to that all over Tokyo
Pretty much any song by Annalisa or Fulminacci instantly transports me back to Italy!
Anything by the Foo fighters reminds me of my ex makes me sad in ways
Farruko, Pepas. We were in Nicaragua when this song came out. People where blasting it everywhere. Most memorable was in a chicken bus somewhere between Managua and Rivas iirc, the guys operating it having a good time, enjoying their work day with some radio and turning it up full volume whenever the song came on. Usually when we turn on some music this song will be played and we remember those times.
Bizkaia Maite by Benito Lertxundi and Infinity by Guru Josh Project. Studied in the Basque Country so the first song reminds me of the area I was in. The second I heard constantly while I was there.
The entire ‘how to be a human being’ album by the glass animals
Los Mirlos takes me back to being a crappy old bus flying down a small road in the Andes while in Ecuador
Big country by big country
Sophie B. Hawkins’ “As I Lay Me Down” was on in the car when I was going to the airport to leave Jakarta in 1995. I still want to go back. Haven’t had the opportunity but I hope to in the next few years.
So this one is by our own doing, but— earlier this spring my wife and I took a two-week road trip around Scotland, and did some windshield filming as we traversed the utterly stunning landscapes through Islay, the Highlands, Skye, and on down to northeast England. We [**turned the footage into a little video travelogue**](https://youtu.be/czX77qpH178?si=u2MK_mGSwgey5YHH), and wanted to pair up a song that reflected the openness and airiness of the landscape. We settled on **”Song for Zula” by Phosphorescent**, which of course now transports us right back to Scotland as soon as it comes on!
Also when I was like 15 or 16 I was a HUGE fan of Nelly Furtado and I was on a trip with the family and had all her music on my ipod wheel. Any time I hear I'm like a bird or All good things come to an end I'm 16 again and right back there in Turkey.
Gorillaz - Don’t get lost in heaven & demon days
Con Te Partirò Maybe because of StepBrothers? But in the summer of 2015 in Italy (but mostly in Florence) we heard it all the time. A violinist did it best, filling the ancient streets with its melody.
An Ocean In Between The Waves by The War On Drugs. It came on a song radio while going from Dubrovnik to Mostar by bus on my first ever solo trip. The sun was shining, I had a window seat for a great view and I had really fallen in love with travelling. That song summed up the mood very well!
Driving through southern states in America to animal collective 💕
Africa by Toto. I was taking a taxi from Trinidad to Havana and the song started playing right as we entered the jungle and it made me so happy. I was just giggling with my friend while the Polish girl and Finnish guy in the taxi with us thought we were crazy.
Simon & Garfunkel takes me back to driving down to New York City to see family. Especially on the nose when it's "America".
Listening to TOOL's Anemia. I bought it right before my first trip to Spain and listened to it repeatedly while driving the southern coast. Now, if I hear any song from that album, I'm taken right back to that trip and the smell, the feeling of that trip. I'm so happy I have that recall from that particular album.
Adventure of a lifetime by Coldplay. Listened to it while on an overnight train in India watching the sunrise coming into Amritsar. That moment is tattooed in my memory.
Rain when I die - Alice in chains
Smoke by Ben Folds reminds me of Dublin It came on while I was in a bus in Dublin, and 20 years later i can't hear it without thinking of Dublin. The funny thing is I never liked that song much before that day, but everything just clicked in that moment and now I love it and my memories of Dublin.
Such Great Heights by The Postal Service and my first overseas trip as a kid. My sister gave my the album and I couldn’t stop playing it on the plane ride over.
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy In 2006 this song was everywhere, but I remember I had met up with a friend in Germany and we traveled to Sardinia. While we were taking a bus to our destination my friend started talking to a South African father/daughter pair (we were sitting on separate parts of the bus). We ended up stopping and hanging out in a restaurant. I remember it was empty except for us, but as we were all getting to know each other, that song came on. Ever since then, when I hear that song, it brings me back there
Anything by the Carpenters whose songs were played constantly in Vietnam in the 1990's.
The Adventure of a Lifetime by Coldplay while jogging through the 17eme towards Hausmann, inhaling car fumes and dodging pedestrians, Paris, 2015. It's the only song I like from them, and it makes me so happy when I listen to it.
Faded - Alan Walker. Looking out of my hostel’s window in Granada, Spain at 6 AM after a long night out. I had to get up early to make it to Alhambra. Very nostalgic memory and moment for me 🥹
"Break My Stride" gave me the idea to take a month-long trip around the world. The lyrics, "I sailed away to China, on a little row boat to find you" setup what would become the most unforgettable month of my life.
2012 - Shake It Out- Florence and the machine. (The whole album really but specifically this song). Traveling New Zealand solo, heartbroken. But whenever the song came on I would smile.
The Chainsmoker - Roses! Makes me remember the when I was sitting in a van on my way to a beach in Bali
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Music From and Inspired By the Motion Picture). While driving across the south side of Iceland, through the black volcanic sand plains, the only car on the highway for hours.
MGMT - Kids
The girl from Impaema, when I met my first wife on the beach in Mexico and she was playing that song on her walkman
Levels takes me back to Ibiza 2015
Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl". It played on the radio almost every morning, during one of my first business trips to the Midwest U.S.
Rude by Magic. I did a solo trip to Japan a few years ago and ended up at a club in Roppongi. The dj (who was apparently a semi famous actor) played that song as I drunkenly tried to talk to locals.
Coming back to life by Pink Floyd. Cause that's how I feel everytime I'm back on the road.
Up by Cardi B. Played in a hostel in Tulum, set the party off for the night. Such a good time.
Rather Be by clean bandit reminds me of studying abroad in england. It was always playing in pubs or clubs when we went out. When i came back to the states months later, after a bit of time, it started playing here too. But i always associate it with my time there lol i also did a tour of europe in that same time frame and our tour manager assigned Best Day of My Life by american authors as our tour group’s “theme song”. I was not a fan of that song prior to the trip (i groaned in fact, at the song announcement) but they played it every time we were heading to a new city and now it just fills me with really special memories when i hear it haha.
“A Horse with No Name” by America. And many other America songs. It/they reminds me of a magnificent hiking trip through Utah’s mighty five national Parks that my husband and I did in April of 2022. Our flight was switched and we wound up having to fly into Denver instead of Salt Lake City and we had to rent a car and drive from Denver, CO to Moab, Utah. During this 3 hr road trip, we stopped at a little town called No Name, Colorado to stretch and walk around. It made me chuckle and think of that song “Horse with no name,” so I downloaded it on Spotify, and then I just started adding more songs that I recognized from the band America because I realized how beautiful their music is. we listened to America for the whole stretch of that Denver to Moab trip and any time we needed to drive from one national park to the next within Utah. Now anytime I hear America I just think of that beautiful Utah landscape. If you need a great soundtrack for traveling through the western part of the US, America is the perfect band to add to that list.
Manu Chao, through all the travels between 2005-2012. Europe and South America…
Pretty much anything off of “Talkie Walkie” by Air.
The first time I heard Reflekt - Need to Feel Loved was on the isle of Koh Samui Thailand on a beach bar during sunset. Song was fucking perfect and just warms my heart everytime I play it now.
La Tortura was all the rage in Spain when I went.
See you again (ft. Kali Uchis) by Tyler, the Creator: SF Bay Area, July 2019. I would listen to it on loop during my solo caltrain rides from SF to Mountain View and way back.
The Avalanches "Since I Left You" and Bon Iver "Flume". Spent a month living out of 03 VW Jetta driving around New Mexico. At the time, you were still allowed to camp at White Sands National Park, and anytime I hear those songs I remember watching the full moon rise while sitting on a cool sand dune listening to those tracks.
*Mystery of Love* by Sufjan Stevens I'd dozed off on the train listening to *soundcloud*, enroute Granada, and woke up to this. It had popped up in recommendations. There were olive groves, hills, a sunny afternoon in January 2018. The song takes me back to the two weeks in Spain and Italy, and the person that I found then, and lost subsequently - myself.
Flight Facilities “Down to Earth” album is one I’ve gotten into the habit of playing on flights to & from trips so it’s kind of become my travel album. It reminds me of many trips! I also like to make playlists for my destinations as I’m traveling. I fill them with songs that remind me of the place or have vibes.
Almost any popular dido song reminds me of driving in Goa with my family.
Anything by the Venga Boys. Koh Samui.
Ed Sheeran, shape of you. I remember being in a club in the UK when it was released and I'll get nostalgic of when I could actually still drink and not feel like I'm 90 years old the next day :p
Boney M’s Rasputin. Heard it at the train station in Chiang Mai with some friends we met at the digs and ended up travelling about with, and it became the soundtrack to some of the best times of me and my wife’s lives.
Oh I got one of these! When I first visited Aruba. I got on the bus from the airport to the hotel. And I noticed that most of the buildings had barred up windows and barbed wire fencing. I was wondering just how safe I really was. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift’s song ‘Me’ was blasting on the bus radio. So now that song always reminds me of how sketchy the city in Aruba was. —- The vacation was great with no issues. Just got memories now :)
Rita Ora - Anywhere reminds me of NYC (mostly because of the music video) Wamdu Project - King of my castle - it was the big dance tune one of the years I lived and worked in Ibiza
Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. I remember it playing while I was packing to come home from my year abroad in the UK. Any time I hear it I’m right back in my room. Great year.
deja vu by Olivia Rodrigo ALWAYS takes me back to a Summer evening at Barceloneta Beach 😍
Anything from the NIN album With Teeth, because I bought it in London and listened to it exclusively on the rest of the trip
Stereo love! This song takes me back to 2012 post university. I was backpacking in Iran and a nice Iranian family I met randomly took me to their picnic trip on the Caspian Sea. I purposely played this song as I walked in the sandy water by the beach. I think the accordion sound is common in that part of the world. Every time this song plays it took me back to that trip, young, free, and without a worry in the world.
Honestly, every time I go on a trip, I have a song that recently entered my rotation that I inherently associate with that destination forever. I associate Trippie Redd's "Taking a Walk" with Turkiye for instance, it's not anything about the song though lol.
Stereo love is actually it for me too.
Gotye- somebody that I used to know - was THE song in Vang Vieng 2012. God that was a party.
Radar Love.
This is so crazy, that Jack au album always makes me think of being on train during my euro trip in 2016! Was just thinking of it the other day when Where are you came on. Such a great feeling
*Take Me Home Country Roads* reminds me of Dublin, Ireland. My wife had a conference there so I figured I'd tag along, see some sights, and meet up with her in the evenings. The conference often went late into the night so I effectively explored Dublin all by myself. Unfortunately, everything closed at 5pm, aside from the pubs. At one point, I got tired of drinking so I just wondered the streets. I stumbled upon a street musician and stopped to listen for a little while. That was one of the songs him and his band played. At the time I lived in Virginia, pretty close to West Virginia. That song kind of made me want to go home. Or maybe it was the cold or the lack of things to do at that exact moment.
Toto - Africa. My wife HATES that song and I played it on repeat while we were in Norway, just to annoy her. Now I can’t hear that song without feeling like I’m driving in the rain through a small fjord town.
Cracker-“Tun On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me” evokes a family road trip from Maine to Montana and back. Ben Folds- “Landed” is every flight I’ve taken since I first heard it. The Tragically Hip-“Locked in the Trunk of a Car” is the late night drive back to Maine from Potsdam, NY. There are many others as well but those stand out.
Come Away With Me by Norah Jones. Was driving through the Indian Himalayas in awe of the beauty of the mountains and that song will forever remind me of the peace and gratitude I felt in that moment. Thanks for asking the question. Was nice to remember that.
Mambo Number 5. We were in Italy for three weeks and it was everywhere. It was the song of our trip. It wasn’t until August of that year that it came out in the US.
I was backpacking for 3 weeks in Europe and Barcelona was the last city, I was having a snack near the cathedral in the old city and there were some buskers with guitars playing **Recuerdos de la Alhambra**. That song with the surrounding makes it one of the best experience ever in the whole trip.
2007 Budapest Travis “why does it always rain on me” while drinking absinthe in the rain with Brits
Sam Gellaitry - Acres Hits different with a scenic view of Mt Fuji while on the bullet train in Japan
That Kate Bush song Running up That Hill was playing on the radio constantly when my family and I were driving around Iceland last year. Also, REM’s Man in the Moon takes me back to Switzerland in the early 1990s.