When you are in the car with 6 kids, entertainment is definitely something you have to plan out. Being a family that loves to have dance parties and sing-a-longs, we plan out our family road trip playlist far in advance.
Summer is right around the corner and that means setting out on some fun adventures! Make sure your family road trip playlist and journey is JUST AS FUN as the destination with this family road trip playlist and songs that everyone likes to move to.
Being a family of 8, the most affordable way to travel is often in the car and on the road. With the cost of flying along with paying for transportation once we arrive at our destination, the budget can get eaten up pretty quick, so a lot of the time it makes sense to make the journey part of our trip and go by car.
If you’re a road-tripping family too, check out these 5 Need-To-Know Big Family Road Trip Packing Tips!
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Our Ultimate Family Road Trip Playlist!
The temperatures are beginning to rise, and that means road trips are hitting the agenda and filling our calendar!
We love the adventure of packing up the car and heading out – the way rubber hitting pavement means miles behind you and open road translating to open opportunities.
In fact, we usually take a LONG family road trip every summer called our #BlueSummerTour and find multiple cities to explore. Lately, our lives have been sprinkled with the sweetness of a few shorter trips.
A couple hour jaunt to play hard after days of working hard. We just unpacked from a few days of sunshine and splashing and we’ll be trippin’ our way across the state to the other coast in just a couple of weeks.
No matter the journey, long or short, the key to making all that time in the car together fun is having an ultimate family road trip playlist at the ready. MUSIC makes it all better!
With kids especially, a great family road trip playlist is the fastest way to change the atmosphere in the car. Music really can set the tone of the trip and change the atmosphere within the car. I’ve seen it change attitudes, turn frowns upside down and calm a crying baby.
Have a cranky little one? Crank up a dance tune! Want to settle the backseat into sleep? Play relaxing, slow tunes (love songs work great). Need to get everyone excited? Turn up a song everyone can sing along to!
So today we’re sharing the BEST family road trip playlist with you that we’ve put together over our road trippin’ adventures! It’s a combination of songs everyone can sing with, songs about hitting the road and songs you just WANT to hear when you’re cruising the highway no end in sight!
Hope ya love it as much as we do!
If our music choices aren’t for you, when it comes to picking the songs for your own family road trip playlist – keep these 3 things in mind when making your selection.
- Variety
Keep things interesting. Switch up your genres – put in a little Pop, a little Country, a little Disney, etc. And don’t be afraid to switch up your decades – choose tunes from the 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s and Now. - Beat
Choose music that has a decent beat, you’re having a car dance party, after all. The more upbeat the more they will have fun singing and dancing along and the less arguments and crying you will encounter along your journey. - Easy Lyrics
If you are choosing some songs that your kids aren’t too familiar with that is ok, as long as you make sure the melody is relatively easy for them to follow along. If your kids can catch onto at least the chorus, and you keep the energy up, they are bound to have a lot of fun.
Ultimate Family Road Trip Playlist! Click through or listen below right along with us!
Our Top Choices for a Family Road Trip Playlist (with selections from the whole family):
- Life is a Highway – Rascal Flatts – Cars (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- Cruise – Florida Georgia Line
- Here’s To The Good Times
- Glorious (feat. Skylar Grey)Macklemore – GEMINI [Clean]
- Summertime – DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince–Greatest Hits
- Can’t Hold Us (feat. Ray Dalton) [Explicit] Macklemore–The Heist [Explicit]
- This Is How We Roll [feat. Luke Bryan]Florida Georgia Line
- Dancing In the Moonlight (Original Recording)King Harvest
- Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It – Will Smith–Big Willie Style
- Empire State Of Mind [feat. Alicia Keys]Jay-Z–The Hits Collection Volume One [Clean]
- House Party – Sam Hunt–Montevallo
- The Bones – Maren Morris GIRL
- The Middle – Zedd The Middle
- Cool – Jonas Brothers Happiness Begins
- Sunday Best – Surfaces
- All Summer Long – Kid Rock–Rock N Roll Jesus
- Take The Money And Run – The Steve Miller Band–Greatest Hits 1974-78
- Dynamite [Explicit]Taio Cruz–Rokstarr
- Summer – Calvin Harris–Summer
- Harder Better Faster Stronger– Daft Punk–harder better faster stronger
- Hazy Shade of Winter – The Bangles–Greatest Hits
- Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car – Billy Ocean–The Very Best of Billy Ocean
- Chicken Fried – Zac Brown Band–The Foundation
- Hometown Girl – Josh Turner–Deep South
- Red Dirt Road – Brooks & Dunn–The Greatest Hits Collection II
- California Gurls (Feat. Snoop Dogg)Katy Perry–Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection
- Unwritten – Natasha Bedingfield
- Dare You to Move – Switchfoot–The Beautiful Letdown (Deluxe Version)
- Born To Be Wild (Single Version)Steppenwolf–Steppenwolf
- Feels Good – Tony! Toni! Toné!–Tony! Toni! Tone’! Greatest Hits
- Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) [Feat. Missy Elliott]Katy Perry–Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection
- I Really Like YouCarly Rae Jepsen–E·MO·TION (Deluxe)
- Wide Awake – Katy Perry–Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection
- Get Lucky – Daft Punk–Random Access Memories
- Summertime Romance – JOHNNYSWIM–Georgica Pond
- Let Me Go [feat. Florida Georgia Line & WATT]Hailee Steinfeld–Let Me Go
- I Gotta FeelingBlack Eyed Peas–NOW That’s What I Call The 00s
- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart – Backstreet Boys–Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
- Free To Be Me – Francesca Battistelli–My Paper Heart
- Love Me Like You [feat. nobigdyl.]The Young Escape–Love Me Like You
- I Come Alive (Josh Southwell Remix)C3 Music–I Come Alive (Josh Southwell Remix)
More Amazing Family-Friendly Travel Ideas!
Which of these family road trip playlist songs do you love? Let me know in a comment below!
Kristin's Peppermints and Cherries says
My family listens to music in the car all the time and we sing along. People driving past us may think we are a little crazy at times! 🙂
Tabitha Laboy says
Haha!! Us too!! We dance and sing and all that!
Leila says
Love this post so cheerful!
Tabitha Laboy says
Thank you!! 🙂
Shannon says
Thanks for the playlist ideas. We have a mini road trip coming up soon, and it might come in handy 😉
Tabitha Laboy says
Oh perfect!
Jennifer Maune | Maune Legacy says
Love this playlist! Started singing many of the songs in my head while reading through (;
-Jennifer
https://maunelegacy.com
Tabitha Laboy says
Thanks so much! Haha, they get stuck in my head sometimes 😉
Keating | MainelyKeating.com says
Such a great list!! My sister and I are going on a cross-country road trip in June and I’m already in the process of building our road trip playlist haha I’ll have to add these!
Julie says
My family and I are definitely ready for a road trip together soon. We love listening to music together and also my husband and I will sometimes listen to a podcast. My girls always have fun playing on the iPads.
Justine @ Little Dove says
That’s a great roundup of songs, a few of them are definitely on my road trip playlist!
[email protected] says
Love all the songs on this road trip list!! Can’t wait to listen to it on our next trip!!
Clair says
I am all about this playlist! Zac Brown Band is one of my fav’s. I struggle with putting together a good playlist, so end up relying on the radio. Always a bust. Need to save this playlist for our next road trip! Did I mention how cute you are?! 🙂