The Best Road Trip Podcasts for Families

Links from this Episode:

• Circle Round Podcast 
• Spyology Squad Podcast 
• Dear Hank and John Podcast on Spotify 
• Song Exploder  
• Everything is Alive 
• Solar  
• Kid Podcast Guide

Road Trip Podcasts for Little Ones

These first two podcasts are for family road trips with little kids. I recommend the podcast Circle Round and Spyology Squad. 

Engaging Folk Tales

Circle Round is a kid podcast that retells folk tales in a super engaging way. I talk about them all the time and recommend them on social media and in my real life.  I don’t think I’ll ever stop talking about Circle Round. It is one of our family’s favorites. It works for kids of all ages. Quite honestly. I love it almost as much as my kids do. 

It’s really engaging for the kids and for me, because each character has their own voice. A different actor plays each character. Each episode is around 25 minutes long. It’s a great one to have several downloaded for when your kids are bickering or when the kids’ eyes start glazing over from all the screen time.

It’s a really good one for pretty much any time when you need a like pivot with your kids on the road trip.  While you’re driving there or when your kids are hungry and you still have 30 minutes left of a drive before you get wherever you’re trying to go. 

Learning About Science in a Fun Way

Spyology Squad is a Science Kid podcast about kids that are on the spy team who keep the world safe from Dr. Stinky Breath. Now this podcast is my kid’s go-to favorite right now. Not just for road trips, but for pretty much any time. When I say, let’s listen to a kid podcast they ask for this. The two main characters on this show are Ava and Jayden. They work with Mr. Jim, who is their adult supervisor as a spy team.

They work with Mr. Jim to solve problems that Dr. Stinky breath creates via science, and it’s adorable. My kids are learning about science in a fun, creative way. It makes them excited to learn more about gravity or ecosystems or any number of things that Mr. Jim works into these episodes. There are three new episodes a week and they usually build on each other.

The Monday episode is the first part of the story. On Wednesday, the episode is the middle part of the story. The Friday episode is the end part of the story. Sometimes I will save up several of those sets of three, for a road trip. The kids love being able to listen to all three in the car on the drive to wherever we’re going.

Road Trip Podcasts for Teenagers 

These next two podcasts are for families with teens. I recommend the Dear Hank and John podcast or Song Exploder. If you have teens in your house right now, then you have probably heard of John Green. He is the author of The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, Paper Towns, and other young adult books.

Answers to Life’s Questions

John and his brother, Hank Green, have been on the internet for a very long time as YouTubers. They have a great rapport. They describe their show really well in their podcast show description, so I just wanted to read it. “Host John and Hank Green, authors and YouTubers, offer both humorous and heartfelt advice about life’s big and small questions. They bring their personal passions to each episode by sharing the week’s news from Mars, the planet, and AFC Wimbledon. So if you can’t tell, the podcast is delightful. It’s hilarious. They always bring interesting anecdotes, but also genuine answers.” 

Each episode is around an hour long. It’s fun to just listen to these brothers have conversations about all sorts of topics.

Song Exploder

The other podcast that would be really good for a family road trip with teens is called Song Exploder. This is the podcast description for Song Exploder. Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. Each episode features an artist discussing a song of theirs, breaking down the sounds that went into the writing and recording.

Song Exploder does a really good job of bringing in artists from all different types of genres of music, eras of music, and making them super interesting. Even if you might not like the artist or the music, it might be really interesting just to hear the backstory on how it all came together. This podcast is a really good one for connecting with your teens if you have a hard time figuring out what to talk about on a road trip or even just in the car on the way to school.

Each episode is about 20 minutes long. You will have to download quite a few if you want them to last your whole road trip, depending on how long your road trip is. 

Guide to Kid Podcasts

Before I tell you about more podcasts for road trips, we’re going to take a quick break to talk about my Guide to Kid podcasts.

One of my favorite parenting tools is kid podcasts. I use them when I’m running errands with the kiddos to keep them from complaining the whole time. When I need a mom break, I’ll just grab an easy activity like coloring pages or a sensory bin, turn on a kid podcast and the kids will be entertained for at least half an hour.

I know that Kid Podcasts would help you in your life too, which is why I made a Guide to Kid podcasts. There are eight categories ranging from science to mindfulness to audio drama with at least three podcasts in each category. There are 27 podcasts in total on the guide. I’ve listened to each of the podcasts so I can attest to them being kid friendly, and I put my email at the bottom of the guide so that if you try a couple with your kids, and none of them are a good fit.

You can email me and I will personally help you find a kid podcast that works for your littles and you, you can grab this guide at the link in the show note. 

Road Trip Podcasts for Adults 

This last section is for road trips when there’s a bunch of adults and no kids or teens. Quite honestly, I think that Dear Hank and John and Song Exploder would be fun ones to listen to with adults too. Those are usually big hits with teenagers, so that’s why I put them in the teenager category. 

The two podcasts that I would recommend for road trips,, with a bunch of adults is Everything is Alive and Solar. 

Unique Life Stories

This is how the Everything Is Alive Team describes their podcast. “Everything is Alive, is an unscripted interview show in which all the subjects are inanimate objects. Each episode a different thing tells us its life story and everything it says is true.”

This podcast is such a fascinating, interesting take on a podcast. The host interviews inanimate objects, and each episode makes you think deeply about an inanimate object that you probably haven’t really ever thought much about.

Some of the episodes include Lewis, the Can of Cola, Dennis the pillow, Anna the elevator, and Sean, the subway seat. This is another podcast that is a great conversation starter for both teens and adults. Each episode is around 20 minutes long. This podcast doesn’t have new episodes airing anymore. They stopped in November of 2022.

I usually get sick of a podcast after I’ve been listening to it for an hour or two. That’s why I’m giving you multiple podcast recommendations so that you can have a bunch of different types downloaded. You can figure out what you are in the mood for while you’re in the car. 

Drama in Space

The last podcast I’m gonna talk about today is called Solar. The Solar team does a really good job describing their show. I’m just going to read it because I love the way that they describe it. 

“Solar is a journey to the heart of the solar system and an exploration of the vastness of the human spirit. Disconnected from earth and trapped on separate parts of their spacecraft, crew members must fight for survival following a disaster on board theill-fated Aethon, a manned solar research probe sent to explore temporal distortion around the sun. As painful memories, forgotten dreams, technological challenges and blunt realities collide–they must work together to keep their hope alive in the face of growing darkness. Shadows are darker this close to the sun.” 

Doesn’t that just sound so cool? This podcast is like a radio drama from the fifties where you’re just like super excited to hear what happens next. It is super engaging. Every character has their own voice and it is so beautifully produced and put together with sound effects.  It’s a beautiful, beautiful production and I am sure that you will fall in love with all of the characters.

Each episode is around 45 minutes long, and there are 12 episodes in the series along with smaller episodes that are kind of like bonuses. They add to the story in the most interesting ways. If you’re looking for something engaging that you can just dive into really deep and get lost in a little bit on your road trip, I highly recommend Solar.