Let’s face it: if we were strictly creating a list of songs about the act of hiking, it would be a very short one. Thankfully, hiking is about more than just walking. It’s about adventure, connecting with nature, and embracing the journey.
With that in mind, this list stretches the theme to include songs that inspire you to hike, keep you motivated on the trail, or simply make a great playlist for your outdoor adventures.
Whether you’re scaling peaks, strolling through forests, or planning your next trek, these songs about hiking are here to set the mood.
Be sure to check out the Songs About Hiking Playlist at the bottom of this page.
Best Songs That Work for Hiking
1. “Canyon Moon” – Harry Styles
Lyric Sample: “Underneath the canyon moon, I’ll be waiting for you.”
This 2019 folk-pop track is about longing to return to a place that felt like home. Styles dreams of the West Coast canyons while traveling through Europe.
2. “Send Me On My Way” – Rusted Root
Lyric Sample: “And we will run, we will, we will crawl, we will.”
“Send Me On My Way” is a mid-’90s track about heading out into the world with nothing but good energy and an open road ahead. It’s been a fixture on hiking playlists for 30 years now.
Related: Best Happy Songs
3. “Walk Away” – James Gang
Lyric Sample: “Seems to me, you don’t want to talk about it.”
Joe Walsh’s 1971 hard-rock classic is about leaving a bad relationship behind without looking back, the title working as both a literal instruction and an emotional one.
4. “On Top of the World” – Imagine Dragons
Lyric Sample: “I’m on top of the world, hey!”
Imagine Dragons’ hit is about finally arriving somewhere in life you’d worked toward for years, grateful and almost disbelieving that things actually turned out this well.
Related: Best Songs About Winning
5. “The Long and Winding Road” – The Beatles
Lyric Sample: “The long and winding road that leads to your door.”
Paul McCartney wrote this 1970 ballad about the exhausting path back to someone he loves, the road itself becoming a metaphor for everything that keeps pulling him away and pulling him back.
6. “Lovely Day” – Bill Withers
Lyric Sample: “Then I look at you, and the world’s all right with me.”
In this soul classic, Withers sings about someone whose presence turns an ordinary day into something worth celebrating
7. “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” – The Sound of Music
Lyric Sample: “Climb every mountain, ford every stream.”
This iconic tune is one of the great motivational songs in musical theater history. It’s about finding the courage it takes to follow your own path.
8. “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” – The Proclaimers
Lyric Sample: “I’m gonna be the man who’s coming home.”
The Proclaimers’ 1988 pop classic is about someone’s full commitment to their partner, measuring their loyalty by the literal and metaphorical distance they are willing to walk to reach them.
Related: Funniest Songs for Guys to Sing at Karaoke
9. “Rise” – Eddie Vedder
Lyric Sample: “Gonna rise up, find my direction magnetically.”
“Rise” is about stripping life down to its essentials and finding freedom in what remains. It was written for the film Into the Wild, which is about a young man who walked away from everything to live alone in the wild.
10. “Wide Open Spaces” – The Chicks
Lyric Sample: “She needs wide open spaces, room to make her big mistakes.”
This 1998 country hit is about a young woman leaving home for the first time to figure out who she is.
11. “Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction
Lyric Sample: “Comin’ down the mountain.”
This 1988 alt-rock track is about wanting to escape the city and return to something more primal and natural. The mountain in the song represents everything the urban world has stripped away.
12. “Rocky Mountain High” – John Denver
Lyric Sample: “He was born in the summer of his 27th year.”
Denver wrote this 1972 folk-rock classic about moving to Colorado and experiencing the mountains for the first time as an adult, the landscape producing a kind of spiritual transformation he hadn’t expected.
Related: Best Songs About Nature
13. “Walk On” – U2
Lyric Sample: “Walk on, walk on, what you got, they can’t steal it.”
“Walk On” is about leaving behind everything that can’t be carried and moving forward anyway, written in tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi‘s refusal to be broken by years of political imprisonment.
14. “Mountain Jam” – The Allman Brothers Band
Instrumental
Originally stretching to over 30 minutes in live performance, this instrumental piece uses the mountain as a setting for one of the great extended jams in rock history.
🎧 Listen to the Full Playlist ↓
15. “Life Is a Highway” – Tom Cochrane
Lyric Sample: “Life is a highway, I want to ride it all night long.”
Cochrane wrote this 1991 rock tune after returning from a trip to Africa that changed his perspective on everything. The highway is a metaphor for embracing the full ride of life rather than dreading it.
16. “Walking on Sunshine” – Katrina and the Waves
Lyric Sample: “I’m walking on sunshine, whoa, and don’t it feel good!”
This 1980s classic is about being so happy in love that the world itself seems to change around you, every step feeling lighter than it did before.
Related: Best Songs About Sunshine
17. “Old Pine” – Ben Howard
Lyric Sample: “Hot sand on toes, cold sand in sleeping bags.”
Howard’s 2011 folk song is about the nostalgia of summers spent outdoors with friends, and the freedom of those days feeling very far away from where adult life has taken him.
18. “One Foot” – Walk the Moon
Lyric Sample: “One foot in front of the other.”
Walk the Moon’s 2014 indie pop track is about taking life one step at a time, keeping moving even when the road ahead looks uncertain.
19. “Going Up the Country” – Canned Heat
Lyric Sample: “I’m going up the country, baby, don’t you wanna go?”
Canned Heat’s 1968 blues-rock classic is about leaving the city behind for somewhere green and open. It became the unofficial anthem of Woodstock the following year.
20. “Ends of the Earth” – Lord Huron
Lyric Sample: “To the ends of the earth, would you follow me?”
As the title implies, this 2012 folk-rock track is about being willing to follow someone you love to the farthest, most remote corners of the world.
21. “Walking in Memphis” – Marc Cohn
Lyric Sample: “Walking in Memphis, but do I really feel the way I feel?”
This 1991 soft rock tune is about a struggling songwriter’s trip to Memphis and the unexpected spiritual awakening it gave him.
Related: “Walking in Memphis” Song Meaning
22. “Mountain Sound” – Of Monsters and Men
Lyric Sample: “Hold your horses now, we sleep until the sun goes down.”
This indie track is all about the call of the wild and wanting to shed everything civilized in favor of something more primal and free
23. “Adventure of a Lifetime” – Coldplay
Lyric Sample: “Turn your magic on, to me she’d say.”
Coldplay’s 2015 funk-pop track is about rediscovering your aliveness through love, turning the ordinary into something that feels like the greatest adventure you’ve ever had.
24. “Stairway to Heaven” – Led Zeppelin
Lyric Sample: “There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west.”
Often called the greatest rock song ever written, “Stairway to Heaven” is about the hollow pursuit of material wealth and the search for something more meaningful.
Related: “Stairway to Heaven” Song Meaning
25. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
Lyric Sample: “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough.”
This 1960s Motown classic is an unconditional pledge of love, with two people promising each other that no obstacle will ever stop them.
26. “Rivers and Roads” – The Head and the Heart
Lyric Sample: “Rivers and roads, rivers and roads, rivers ’til I reach you.”
“Rivers and Roads” is a 2011 folk song about friends and loved ones moving away and the distance that grows between people.
Related: Best Graduation Songs
27. “Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?” – The Corries
Lyric Sample: “Will you go, lassie, go? And we’ll all go together.”
This 1969 rendition of the Scottish folk song centers on an invitation to a partner to venture into the hills to gather wild mountain thyme as the summer season begins to bloom.
28. “Home” – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Lyric Sample: “Home, let me come home, home is wherever I’m with you.”
This 2009 folksy track is about finding that home is wherever the right person is, the road and the landscape interchangeable as long as you’re moving through them together.
Related: Best Love Songs and Songs About Home
29. “The Good Life” – OneRepublic
Lyric Sample: “Oh, this has gotta be the good life.”
OneRepublic’s uplifting 2010 track is about the dissatisfaction of a life lived on autopilot and the resolve to change that, to go after something that actually feels worth having.
30. “Into the Wild” – LP
Lyric Sample: “Somebody left the gate open, you know we got lost on the way.”
LP’s 2014 indie pop track is about wanting to escape civilization and find something more honest in the wilderness.
31. “Walk This Way” – Aerosmith
Lyric Sample: “Walk this way, talk this way.”
Aerosmith’s 1975 breakthrough hit is about a teenage sexual awakening. The “walk this way” in the title is more of an invitation than a direction. Still, it’s a great chorus to listen to on a hike!
Related: “Walk This Way” Song Meaning
32. “I Walk the Line” – Johnny Cash
Lyric Sample: “I find it very, very easy to be true.”
Cash wrote this 1956 country classic as a promise to himself to stay faithful while on the road.
33. “Wagon Wheel” – Old Crow Medicine Show
Lyric Sample: “Rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel.”
This folk-country classic is about moving through the landscape of the American South toward someone waiting on the other side
Related: “Wagon Wheel” Song Meaning
34. “Walk” – Foo Fighters
Lyric Sample: “I’m learning to walk again.”
Dave Grohl wrote this 2011 song after a period of personal and professional frustration. The “walk” here means starting over from scratch and deciding to keep going regardless.
35. “Mountain Greenery” – Ella Fitzgerald
Lyric Sample: “In a mountain greenery, where God paints the scenery.”
Fitzgerald’s version of this classic is a breezy, joyful celebration of nature as the perfect backdrop for romance, the mountains offering a simplicity that city life can’t match.
Conclusion
A great hiking playlist doesn’t have to be literal. The best songs for the trail are the ones that make you feel like the world is worth exploring, that the next step is worth taking, and that whatever you’re moving toward is better than wherever you’ve been. These songs do all of that.
Be sure to check out our other “Songs About…” lists, like the Best Songs About Nature.
