Package holiday specialists TravelBird have released the Most Travelled Musicians Ranking, presenting a comprehensive insight into the travel miles of the world’s most admired artists. Aiming to always find new ways to inspire travellers, TravelBird combined music, travel and curiosity within the study of 36 of the world’s favourite artists. The ranking reveals which bands and musicians have the greatest number of travel miles under their belt and who holds the title of the world’s most travelled. In addition to presenting the most travelled artists, TravelBird also calculated how much it would cost an ultimate superfan to have followed each musician throughout their career.
To create the Ranking, TravelBird began with 36 most popular performers, selected from the results of a poll on popular musicians created by TravelBird, both legends and new sensations, from a range of genres. Their total travel distance of their public engagements was then calculated, taking all national, continental and world tours in account, from the beginning of their career. This includes arena shows, festival appearances, and road trips but excludes private engagements. Using this information, TravelBird calculated exactly how many times around the world each artist could have travelled, as well as how many times they could have flown to the moon. When possible, ground miles were used, and the figures reflect city-to-city rather than venue-to-venue distances. Full methodology is available to view at the base of the press release and on the TravelBird landing page.*
Interestingly, TravelBird found that the years an artist has performed does not always mean they have travelled further, with the top two farthest-travelling performers having been active since the 90s, beating the likes of those who have been performing since the 60s, 70s or 80s.
The study revealed the ten most travelled artists in the ranking are:
| # | Musician | Career Miles Travelled | Last 12 months | Times around the world | Times to the moon |
| 1 | Tiësto | 1,557,131 | 209,773 | 62.53 | 6.52 |
| 2 | Paul van Dyk | 1,442,993 | 115,968 | 57.95 | 6.04 |
| 3 | Bob Dylan | 1,389,374 | 35,551 | 55.80 | 5.82 |
| 4 | Metallica | 1,307,842 | 31,791 | 52.52 | 5.48 |
| 5 | Aerosmith | 1,099,901 | 15,676 | 44.17 | 4.60 |
| 6 | Muse | 1,070,332 | 37,281 | 42.98 | 4.48 |
| 7 | Rolling Stones | 1,054,965 | 20,137 | 42.37 | 4.42 |
| 8 | U2 | 1,039,470 | 0 | 41.74 | 4.35 |
| 9 | Cyndi Lauper | 958,672 | 29,977 | 38.50 | 4.01 |
| 10 | Snoop Dogg | 866,234 | 40,180 | 34.79 | 3.63 |
