[pct-l] What’s your favorite hiking music? I’m creating a list to bring on my PCT walk this summer.

[Katy Shaw]

Hi Reno Hawk,

A few months into my PCT hike last year, a friend talked me into subscribing to Spotify.  The advantage of Spotify is you can make or choose playlists and download them so you can listen offline while you hike.  You can also ask friends and family to make playlists for you, which is a fun way to connect with loved ones back home while you hike.  It’s also easy to switch your music up as you hike and you get bored of the same old music.  I found some good PCT playlists on Spotify, my favorite one being “PCT” by Noel Nelson as it includes lots of great songs about walking and missing home.

My music tastes changed over the course of my hike, but some of my favorites included:  the Hamilton soundtrack, Tom Jones, Lord Huron, All Out 70s playlist on Spotify, the Beatles, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, the Jayhawks, Led Zeppelin, Meghan Trainor, Credence Clearwater Revival, and the “Have a Great Day” Spotify playlist. Another fun one is the “500 miles” song by the Proclaimers for when you hit the 500 mile marker.

I’d also highly recommend podcasts and audiobooks.  I placed holds on tons of audiobooks at my local library and then as they became available I’d check them out and download them to my iPhone.  I’d get recommendations for books on Good Reads and on Oprah’s book list, as well as from my library.  

There are so many great podcasts which you can download and listen offline while you hike. Some of my favorites are: My Brother My Brother and Me, This American Life, Serial, S-Town and - my favorite podcast of all time - The Adventure Zone. The Adventure Zone is a super nerdy but hilarious and surprisingly touching podcast about 3 brothers and their dad playing Dungeons and Dragons. I recommend starting at episode 1.5 and then listening in chronological order as the story progresses over time. It took me a while to warm up to it, but once I did I became obsessed to the point that I now am going to fly to another city to attend their live show where they play D&D onstage in front of a live audience.  And I’ve never played D&D before.

Another fun podcast is My Dad Wrote a Porno, which is super raunchy but also the only podcast that caused me to laugh out loud while I hiked to the point that I had tears streaming down my face.  The premise is that this guy’s dad wrote the worst erotic novel of all time and three friends take turns reading it out loud and making fun of it.  I could only handle a few episodes before it was too much for me but that was one of my funnest days on trail.

Happy Trails!
-Unicorn, Class of 2017

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 27, 2018, at 9:57 PM, Joe Roth <jroth2353 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Reno Hawk
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