Music matters, especially when you travel.
We’ve all had it happen when just hearing the first few bars of a track, even if you haven’t heard it in years, you’re instantly taken back to how you felt in a certain place or with a certain someone. Songs have long had the power to evoke the craziest feelings within seconds of the beat kicking in.
I’m sure a lot of travellers will have ‘their song’, some anthem, no matter how cheesy or unlike the stuff they’d listen to back home, that whenever they hear it the memories of the adventures and fun they got up to on the other side of the world fills their heads.
One of my pre-trip rituals is to sync up my iPod and fill it with new music, old classics, guilty pleasures and a mix of playlists depending on my moods. However, most of the songs that actually make up my travel soundtracks are ones that I’ve heard in the most bizarre of places. This is one of the things I love about travelling: being able to discover new songs, artists and bands that you’d never even heard of before but now CANNOT.STOP.SINGING. Damn those catchy tunes, even if they may be in a foreign language and you’re probably butchering the sentiment by being unable to understand or properly pronounce the lyrics.
From dancing to Ziggy Marley in a dingy dive of a reggae band in Chiang Mai, singing along to Manu Chao during a Spanish lesson in Peru, to being serenaded by a goosebumps-inducing acoustic version of ‘Wagonwheel’ in the middle of the Thai jungle. All these songs make up the soundtrack to my travels and I could close my eyes, hear these tracks and be immediately transported back to these places.
But music when you travel doesn’t just have to be about finding songs to create an epic Spotify playlist of your trip; it can also be a lifesaver and a distraction on seemingly never-ending train journeys, overnight bumpy bus rides or long haul flights to drown out the person next to you having a snore-off with themselves or the non-stop wailing of the awful CD your driver is obviously loving judging by the way he has hit repeat for last few hours. A decent pair of headphones is a travel essential in my eyes.
When I was backpacking solo I listened to a lot of what I call ‘happy’ songs (can you tell I’m not a music aficionado?!) and now when I hear them I feel this glow of pride remembering that lost and confused woman who had the courage to take that first flight on her own. Since writing The Lonely Hearts Travel Club I’ve made sure to tap into this memory box. Usually I write in silence to help me stay focused as otherwise I’d be sat warbling away as I typed and trust me, ain’t no-one got time for dat. However, for certain scenes in Destination Thailand when I wanted to get back in the zone of how I felt I just needed to crank up the volume on the songs I overplayed during this trip and the feelings came rushing back.
I also listen to music when I write not just to reminisce but also to have tracks playing in the background that suit the mood of whatever chapter or scene I’m writing. As I wrote Destination India I listened to a lot of Bollywood inspired tunes to transport me to the chaotic wonderful Indian cities and for Destination Chile I’m feeling the Narcos soundtrack (anyone else completely obsessed with this series?!) for those spicy Spanish flavours of South America.
Like I said, music matters.
I’d love to know what songs takes you back to a certain country?
