
Best Audiobooks For Road Trips
A list of audiobooks to elevate any road trip to an adventure.
Getting ready to hit the open road? Forget music. A list of the best audiobooks for road trips is a must. Just press play and watch your journey fly by in a flash.
A great audiobook is more than just entertainment. It's an extra passenger, maybe several if it's performed by a cast. An escape and an experience all its own.
So, what makes for good audio books for road trips? Ones that match the length of your drive? One with broad appeal? What about something funny? You might be after pure fun.
So, without further ado, let’s get this party on wheels started. Category by category, here’s the Audiobooks Nest best audiobooks for road trips. Bon Voyage!
Top Road Trip Audiobooks
1
By
Ernest Cline
Read By
Wil Wheaton
Careful Marty! This scifi gem is brimming with enough 1980’s pop culture references to perm your hair. Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One will transport you into a dystopian reality where the only way to live is virtual. Read by none other than Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton, this is everything you need to nerd out and everything you want from a road trip audiobook.
2
By
Cormac McCarthy
Read By
Tom Stechschulte
Okay yes. The title is slightly on the nose. But I did restrain myself. I almost went with Jack Kerouac’s best known tome.,, But back to The Road. This stunning Pulitzer Prize winning work is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece about a father and son bond that survives the end of the world and beyond.
3
By
Robert R. McCammon
Read By
Tom Stechschulte
Let one of the scariest, most gruesome audio books around keep you rearing to go on your road trip. Spend over 34 hours in the grimmest apocalypse possible and join the fight to save the world. I guarantee you won’t be bored for a second.
4
By
Stephen King
Read By
Grover Gardner
If there’s one author who’ll stick with you until the end, it is the king of horror, Mr Stephen King. King’s audiobooks are infamously long and thus ideal for road trips. Especially as quantity doesn’t mean sacrificing on quality. In fact, one of his most popular tomes, The Stand, runs for almost 48 hours. That’ll get you the whole way across the US, coast to coast. But remember, never drive more than the medically recommended number of hours in a day.
One extra note: The longest fiction audiobook I’ve come across is War & Peace at a stonking 61 hours, 6 minutes. Bought it. Tried it. Couldn’t finish it.
5
By
Alma Katsu
Read By
Kristen Potter
Even the best road trips have their tougher moments. When you’re sick of driving and bored at the wheel, it’s good to know that things could be a lot worse. And there are few road trips worse than that of the Donner Party. Alma Katsu’s reimagining of this historic event adds a supernatural twist to this renowned tale.
6
By
Gail Honeyman
Read By
Cathleen McCarron
Unless your road trip is a one way thing, you’ll need something to entertain you both there and back. And that’s where Eleanor Oliphant comes in. This is very much a story of two diverging halves. So you can ride one direction with one mood and a totally different vibe the other.
7
By
David Wong
Read By
Christy Romano
Are you on the hunt for funny audiobooks for road trips? Look no further than the works of David Wong. Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits is the first in his Zoey Ashe series, set in a grim future where good and evil are tough to differentiate. It’s outrageous, fast paced and hilarious. What’s more the narration of Christy Romano is phenomenal.
Best of the Rest: Road Trip Audiobooks
By
Read By
Bentley Little
Chris Andrew Ciulla
Chilling, Riveting, How Did I Miss This?
By
Read By
Jack Jordan
Lucy Paterson, Sarah Feathers, Jane Collingwood
Tantalisingly Twisted Thriller
By
Read By
Don Roff
Stephen R. Thorne
Loved the Found Footage (or Audio) Feel
By
Read By
Alice Feeney
Stephanie Racine, Richard Armitage
Thrilling and Creepy With A Killer Twist
By
Read By
Sequoia Nagamatsu
Jason Culp, Stephanie Komure, Micky Shiloah, Joe Knezevich, Brianna Ishibashi, Kotaro Watanabe, Matthew Bridges, Kurt Kanazawa, Greg Watanabe, Jeanne Sakata, MacLeod Andrews, Keisuke Hoashi, Brian Nishii, Julia Whelan
High Praise for this Darkest of Tales
By
Read By
Rosie Walsh
Imogen Church, Theo Solomon
Mystery + Love Story + Drama + Thriller = Mind Blown
By
Read By
Stephanie DeCarolis
Norma Butikofer
I Know What You Did Last Summer Meets Gossip Girl
By
Read By
Mandy Byatt
Melissa Woodbridge
Elements of John Marrs, Rachel Abbott and Adele Parks.
By
Read By
Z. A. Recht
Oliver Wyman
Classic pandemic flick Outbreak meets TV’s Fear the Walking Dead.
By
Read By
Matt Haig
Carey Mulligan
Mesmerising Story, Powerfully Delivered by Carey Mulligan and with a Kate Atkinson Feel
By
Read By
Matt Ritter
Matt Ritter
Like Post Apocalyptic Adventure? Sinister Dystopias? A G Riddle? This is for you.
By
Read By
Stacey Madden
Cherlanda Estrada and Nate Drury
A Satisfying Rummage Through Tangled Minds and Stories
By
Read By
Vera Kurian
Brittany Pressley
Aaaaaargh-mazing. Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test meets Alice Feeney’s Sometimes I Lie meets Scream (shout out 1996).
By
Read By
Bella Mackie
Charly Clive, Paul Panting
A Compelling Seduction to The Dark Side
By
Read By
Ronald Malfi
Joe Hempel
A carefully crafted mystery with echoes of (and I don't bandy this about) Gone Girl
By
Read By
Charity Norman
Julie Maisey
One cup of Liane Moriarty, one cup Lisa Jewell and a dollop of K.L. Slater.
By
Read By
Meg Elison
Angela Dawe
As powerful and Inspiring As The Handmaid's Tale
By
Read By
Liane Moriarty
Caroline Lee
Tangled webs as only Moriarty knows how.
By
Read By
Jennifer McMahon
Cassandra Campbell
Another gripping masterpiece by McMahon, only enhanced by Cassandra Campbell’s flawless narration.
By
Read By
Aldous Huxley
Michael York
A timeless piece about human nature versus nurture.
By
Read By
Sarah Lyons Fleming
Roger Wayne, Teri Schnaubelt, Christian Barillas, Mia Gaskin
If Big Little Lies had zombies in it...
By
Read By
Gene Doucette
Erin Bennett, Kiff VandenHeuvel, Juliette Goglia, Zeno Robinson, Will Collyer, Grace Rolek, Farah Merani
Exceptional. Beautifully Written, Brilliantly Read. The TV show Lost, but with a proper ending.
By
Read By
Max Brooks
Christopher Ragland, Rupert Farley, Nigel Pilkington, Jennifer Woodward, David Thorpe, Adam Sims, Robert Slade
Zombie apocalypse perfection.
By
Read By
Sophie Mackintosh
Hannah Murray, Gemma Whelan, Morfydd Clark
A Sinister Story Cleverly Told