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I use Spotify to create playlists for every purpose, be it a house party, my workout, or long road trips with my friends. Spotify is my go-to music app when I need to craft a perfect travel playlist that’ll last me the entire trip.
The app has many collaborative and playlist-specific features that cemented it in my list of travel essentials. Here are ten Spotify features that help me create the best travel playlist every time.
Offline Mode for Low Connectivity Areas
Todownload a playlist, click the download icon under its name and wait for all the songs to be made available offline.
You can change your offline listening settings by going to your profile > Settings and Privacy > Data-saving and Offline > Offline. Here, enable “Offline Mode” if you want to disable your internet access and only view downloaded music. To make sure your downloads are correctly stored, toggle on “Offline Access.” Toggling this off will automatically remove all your downloads.
Finding Different Types of Travel Playlists on Spotify
When I start to create a travel playlist for a trip, the first thing I use to discover new songs is Spotify’s library of playlists. The streaming platform has hundreds of travel playlists for each mood and type of trip. There are road trip playlists, coffeehouse playlists, genre-specific travel playlists, and more to discover. To find what you want, go to your Spotify app’s Search tab and enter “Travel” in the search bar. Click on the “Travel” genre to find travel playlists.
When you search for “Travel,” you will also see a “Travel Mix,” a playlist personalized for you based on your listening history. This comes with a combination of songs from your library and similar recommendations. When you come across a travel playlist you want to use, click the “+” (plus) sign to add it to your Spotify library for easy access. Once I find a travel playlist I like, I handpick songs from it to add to my custom playlist, or use the radio feature to discover similar songs.
Making Custom Playlist Covers
Once you’ve prepared your travel playlist, you may customize it in many ways, such as editing the song list, adding collaborators, andeven creating your own cover. Spotify usually assigns a pre-made cover based on the songs you have added to the playlist, but with this feature for iOS and Android, you cancustomize the cover artfrom your mobile app.
To make a custom playlist cover, open your travel playlist and click on the three dots under its name. Then, tap “Create cover art.” From here, you can upload any image you want, add custom text, change the cover’s background color or style, and even add little stickers wherever you want to place them. If you wish, you can also use a color gradient for the cover and try effects like masking, radial blur, and repeater, which are effects you often see in famous cover art for albums.
This feature is still in Beta, so it has some shortcomings, like you cannot edit the cover once you’ve made it. The options for effects and text are also limited, so I tend to just add a picture of my destination and add minimal effects for each travel playlist I make.
Using Moods to Customize My Playlist
Another way I customize my travel playlist is searching up a particular mood on the Spotify search bar, such as chill, upbeat, or energy. These show me different genres and mixes, which contain personalized songs that I then add to my travel playlist.
you’re able to also find a “Mood” category in your search tab, which has mood-based playlists that you can directly start using. I use these when I’m out of songs in my travel playlist and want a no-effort playlist.
Discovering Local Music Through Radio
A small hack I use to discover new music is discovering trending music through playlists when I travel. You can find country-specific trending songs in your Search tab, under “Charts.” These explore categories are a good way to find indie, local music or music in other languages. You can use the “Live Events” category to find local music shows during your trip.
When I come across local music that I like, I find similar music by using the radio feature. you may use the radio feature for a song you’re playing by clicking the three dots next to it and selecting “Go to Radio,” which takes you to a separate playlist.
Drawing Inspiration from Spotify’s Curated Playlists
Apart from the travel genre and other dedicated playlists, a good place to find my favorite songs on Spotify is by using the app’s personalized Mixes and playlists. These are based on your listening activity and past activity, allowing you to rediscover songs you already like.
If you scroll down your Spotify home tab, you will come across playlists labeled “Uniquely Yours.” These contain playlists like “Daylist,” “On Repeat,” and “Repeat Rewind,” which contain your favorite songs from the present and past.
Using Collaborative Playlists to Discover More Songs
One of my favorite things about using Spotify as my preferred music streaming app isthe collection of collaboration featuresit provides. You can create a collaborative playlist by sharing your travel playlist (as long as it’s public) with your friends/family, or use Spotify Connect to play music on one device while controlling music from another.
But my favorite collaborative features to use while on the road are Jam and Blend.Spotify’s Jamallows you to have a real-time shared listening experience, allowing multiple users to control the music queue. Regardless of whether you area Spotify Premium user or not,you can use this feature, although only Premium users can do a remote Jam session. When you are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, you will be automatically prompted to join a nearby user’s Jam when they’re playing music. Otherwise, tap the speaker icon under your current song and tap “Start a Jam” to generate a shareable link/QR code.
Spotify’s Blendis a collaborative playlist that allows you to create a mix of similar songs between users, with up to 10 people being able to create a Blend playlist. To use Blend, click the “+” (plus) sign in your Spotify library and tap “Blend,” then send an invite link to collaborators. As an Apple user, I also use CarPlay for Spotify on road trips.
Taking Inspiration from the AI Playlist Feature
Spotify has another feature in Beta, which, although I don’t use to create my travel playlist from scratch, is still useful when I need to add more songs. This isthe AI playlist, which turns your prompts into a custom playlist for you. These playlists are created in seconds and can be added to your library and modified until you get what you’re looking for.
To create an AI playlist (or simply make one to take inspiration from), click the “Create” button, which is available either on the top of your Spotify library or as the fourth tab in your mobile app. Then, click “Make AI Playlist.” From here, type out an appropriate prompt (I used “Make a travel playlist for my road trip to Montreal with chill vibes”).
If you’re happy with the playlist, click “Create” to finalize it, or tap “Refine this playlist” to modify your prompt. If you’re short on time, this is a quick and foolproof way to have a travel playlist ready to go.
Using Social Media to Add More Songs
I find a lot of new songs using audio from Instagram and TikTok, which are often featured in trending videos. Spotify hasan integration with these social media platforms, which allows you to directly open up a song on the app when you discover it through an audio on Instagram or TikTok. This makes adding new music to my travel playlist a quick process.
Tosave Instagram audio to Spotify, click on any audio that you come across (tap the music icon next to it). If the audio belongs to an official song/artist and is available on Spotify, you may then open it directly by clicking the “Add” button (with a little Spotify logo next to it) under the “Use Audio” button.
you may do the same with TikTok if the audio does not belong to an edit/mashup. Click on “Contains: (Song Name)”, then tap “Add to music app.” From here, click the “Add” button next to Spotify, and tap “Open.” If it’s your first time doing this, click on “Agree” to link the two apps. Now, you can click “Add to Spotify” to add more songs from TikTok, which will automatically add the song to your Liked Songs playlist.
Using the AI DJ to Find New and Old Songs
One flaw in the way I undertake music discovery on Spotify is that I tend to forget about older releases I have in my library and stick to more of the recent or trending releases. But road trips with friends often call for a good dose of nostalgia, which is why I always attempt to revive my music profile from a few years back. To have a few throwback songs in my travel playlist, I do two things: either put my Liked Songs playlist on shuffle and add older songs to it, or use the AI DJ feature.
The AI DJ is a Beta feature that you can use on your mobile or desktop app. This is a personalized way to start your custom radio station, with the ability to talk directly to the AI DJ. To use the AI DJ, scroll down your Spotify home tab and click on “Your DJ” to begin your personal radio. Once the songs start playing, you can click the DJ icon in the lower-right corner to talk to the DJ and make a change to the songs/vibe.
While you can use the AI DJ or curated playlists to start playing music quickly on your trips, customizing a travel playlist using Spotify’s features has always helped me have a personalized listening experience with friends and family.
