Music For Travelling

Bus journeys are boring, save for those rare trips where something interesting happens (like driving onto Ninety Mile Beach). Car journeys are also boring unless you can stop regularly to take photos of all the pretty things. Even flights can get boring, despite in-flight entertainment.

But with the addition of a little music... well, suddenly everything's a little less boring and a bit more awesome. What better way to spend an otherwise dull drive between stops then singing along to a favourite song? How about driving up a mountain in the dark and the rain, flashes of lightning illuminating the sky, hairpin bends at every corner and a favourite musical soundtrack blaring from the speakers?

Certainly kept us sane while driving up Mount Hercules on New Zealand's west coast. Should have been terrifying but I mostly remember it now as hilarious since Claire and I spent it singing along to Avenue Q and occasionally squeaking when a particularly sharp bend appeared in the headlights.

Well, how can you take things seriously when this is playing?

And then there's the obvious choice for New Zealand, but also for adventuring in general. I think it might have begun to grate on Claire and Amy that I kept bursting out with this at random points. It inspires my spirit of adventure, though.

It doesn't help that we'd already come out with "YOU SHALL NOT HAAAAAAST!" when we thought we'd have to bypass the Haast Pass and go the long way round... after that, singing The Ring Goes South whilst driving through the Haast Pass seemed sort of normal...

Moving on from that rambling. This was our Ireland jam. I have no idea why. It just sort of happened and then it got to the point where all three of us would burst into song for no apparent reason and sort of try and fail to harmonise. Fun times.

Whyever wouldn't you sit on Carrickarede singing Waterfalls? Ignore the fact there's no waterfall...

 This is known among the New Zealand Expedition (read: me, my friend Claire and my sister) as the "Killy-killy-death song". Only because it came up on shuffle while my sister was driving and it freaked her out enough for her to want it turning off.

Shame. It's a good song.

What better way of passing the time than popping on a long forgotten album or sticking your music player on shuffle just to see what comes up?

For the really long drives/flights/boats though, I have a bunch of podcasts. These range from the BBC's Infinite Monkey Cage (science and comedy) to the Coffee Break language learning series. If I'm going to be stuck on a bus for 24 hours, I might as well learn something new while I'm at it!

What music do you enjoy while travelling? Got any good podcast recommendations? Why not share in the comments below.