Summer Roadtrip Playlist: 50 Songs for 50 States

The summer road trip is a rite of passage. We know first-hand how much time and preparation goes into a cross-country trip. There are campsites to book, schedules to coordinate, and bags to pack. In all that planning, it can be easy to forget one of the most crucial elements of any long journey: the soundtrack.

You want the right music to set the tone for your trip. This is a topic I’ve always taken very seriously. Growing up, we had a minivan with a six-disc CD player not-so-conveniently located in the trunk. This meant we had to decide what albums would be playing us home from Grandma’s house before we ever loaded the car. (There was no way my mom was going to tunnel through luggage while in a truck stop parking lot just to change out a CD).

My mom was very diplomatic about the whole thing: she picked two CDs, my sister picked two CDs, and I picked two CDs. This led to a lot, and I mean a lot, of homemade CDs filled with my of-the-moment favorites. You could play one for me today, and I could probably tell you how old I was and the book I was reading at the time I was selecting the songs. Some of those tracks even ended up on this list.

Thankfully, music streaming apps have rendered that 6-disc changer as obsolete as my dad’s shoebox of 8-track tapes. It has never been easier to customize a playlist for a trip or, in this case, a theme. Here is a three-hour-long playlist, with a song for each of the 50 states, to keep you company on the road.

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