When you’re taking a walk through the countryside or traversing hills and mountains, what could be a better accompaniment than music? Plenty of Spotify users seem to agree that any walk needs a soundtrack, so we’ve taken a look at over 200 playlists generated by Spotify and by other users to see which songs are the most popular to listen to while hiking. 

We combed through 104 playlists that had ‘hiking’ or ‘hikes’ in their title with a total of 25,000 songs to find which songs and artists popped up in the largest number of playlists.

The top songs feature a definite folky vibe with The Lumineers’ hit, Ophelia taking the top spot, having appeared 31 of the 104 playlists and boasting 332,348,873 plays on Spotify. Riptide by Vance Joy took the second spot with 28 playlist appearances.

The Lumineers also sit at the top of the list when it comes to the most featured artists, with 222 appearances across the total playlists, putting them way ahead of the artist in second place, Depeche Mode with 149 appearances.

Hikers seem to favour recent songs with just one song from the top 10 having been released before the year 2000.

If you want to make your own playlist to listen to while you take to the mountains, why not make a start with these top tracks…

 

The World’s Favourite Hiking Songs

Ophelia - The Lumineers

 

Riptide - Vance Joy

 

Old Pine - Ben Howard

 

Ends of the Earth - Lord Huron

 

Mess is Mine - Vance Joy

 

Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

 

Ho Hey - The Lumineers

 

Flowers in Your Hair - The Lumineers

 

Skinny Love - Bon Iver

 

Big Black Car - Gregory Alan Isakov

 

Sedona - Houndmouth

 

Holocene - Bon Iver

 

All The Pretty Girls - KALEO

 

Down in the Valley - The Head and the Heart

 

Lost in My Mind - The Head and the Heart

 

New Slang - The Shins

 

Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver

 

Keep Your Head Up - Ben Howard

 

Heartbeats - José González

 

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

 

Sleep On The Floor - The Lumineers

 

Georgia - Vance Joy

 

She Lit a Fire - Lord Huron

 

Dirty Paws - Of Monsters and Men

 

Welcome Home, Son - Radical Face

 

Stubborn Love - The Lumineers

 

 

The Artists That Appear In The Most Hiking Playlists

 

Methodology:

Using Spotify, we compiled a list of 104 playlists featuring 25,000 songs by searching for playlists that had ‘hiking’ or ‘hikes’ in the title. We then took this list of songs and found the frequency with which each song appeared to discover the top songs for hiking as well as the artists who appeared most often.