The 15 Best Driving Podcasts (2026)

The Daily from The New York Times has basically become the default morning news podcast for millions of people, and there's a good reason for that. Michael Barbaro (along with co-hosts Rachel Abrams and Natalie Kitroeff) takes one or two stories each episode and spends a full 20 minutes really getting into them. That's the key difference here -- instead of rattling off headlines, you get NYT reporters walking through their own investigations and sourcing in real time. The format works because it trusts you to sit with a single topic. Monday through Saturday, you'll hear from reporters who actually broke the stories, explaining not just what happened but the texture around it -- the phone calls, the documents, the moments that didn't make the print edition. Barbaro's interviewing style is distinctive (some people love the dramatic pauses, others find them a bit much), but he's genuinely skilled at pulling out the human side of complex policy stories. With over 2,500 episodes and more than 100,000 ratings on Apple Podcasts, it's one of the most listened-to podcasts in the world, period. The production quality is top-notch -- the sound design, the music cues, the pacing all feel cinematic without being overwrought. If you only have time for one news podcast in the morning, this is the safe bet. It won't cover everything, but what it does cover, it covers thoroughly.

Up First is NPR's answer to the question: what if you could get caught up on the news before your coffee even kicks in? Clocking in at roughly 10 to 15 minutes, this daily podcast distills the three biggest stories of the day into something compact and digestible. It's hosted on a rotating basis by Leila Fadel, Steve Inskeep, Michel Martin, and A Martinez on weekdays, with Ayesha Rascoe and Scott Simon handling weekends.

Each episode typically covers three to four segments, moving briskly from one story to the next with just enough context that you feel informed without being overwhelmed. The reporting draws on NPR's deep bench of correspondents, so you're getting voices from the field rather than just studio commentary. Episodes land by 6:30 a.m. ET on weekdays, making it genuinely useful for early commuters.

On Sundays, there's a bonus: The Sunday Story with Ayesha Rascoe, which takes a longer look behind a single headline. It's a nice complement to the rapid-fire weekday format.

What makes Up First ideal for driving is its brevity. You can finish an entire episode during a short commute and actually retain what you heard. There's no filler, no rambling tangents. The hosts are professional without being stiff, and the transitions between stories feel natural. It won't replace deeper reporting, but it's the best quick-hit news podcast out there for people who want to know what's happening without committing to a full hour.

Conan O'Brien might be even funnier on a podcast than he was on late night TV, and that's saying something. Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend launched in 2018, and the format is simple: Conan sits down with a celebrity guest for a long, winding conversation that goes wherever it goes. His assistant Sona Movsesian and producer Matt Gourley serve as sidekicks, and some of the best moments come from Conan's ongoing bits with them — the running jokes about Sona's work ethic and Gourley's encyclopedic knowledge become their own comedy universe over time. Each episode opens with the guest saying their name and how they feel about being Conan's friend, followed by The White Stripes' "We're Going to Be Friends" as the theme. It's a small touch that sets the tone perfectly. The interviews themselves are less structured than a typical talk show appearance. Without time constraints, guests open up in ways they rarely do elsewhere, and Conan's improvisational instincts keep the conversation from ever getting stale. He'll derail a serious moment with a perfectly timed absurd observation, then circle back to something genuinely meaningful. The ad reads deserve special mention — Conan turns them into comedy bits, sometimes introduced as "Conan O'Brien Pays Off the Mortgage on His Beach House." Episodes typically run about an hour, and the spin-off "Needs A Fan" segments add variety with fan questions over Zoom. For long-distance driving, few podcasts match the sheer density of laughs per mile. Conan's energy is infectious without being exhausting, and the conversational format means you can jump into any episode cold.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is NPR's news quiz show, and it's been making people smarter and dumber at the same time since 1998. Hosted by Peter Sagal with Bill Kurtis as the official judge and scorekeeper, the show is recorded live -- often at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago -- and that live energy is a big part of what makes it work.

The format is built around panel comedy. Three comedians and writers join Sagal each week to riff on the news, compete in trivia games, and generally make fun of whatever absurd thing happened in the world that week. The standout segment is "Not My Job," where a celebrity guest answers questions about a topic hilariously unrelated to their expertise. Past guests have included everyone from actors to athletes to politicians, and watching them flounder through questions about, say, cheese manufacturing is reliably entertaining.

Episodes run about 45 minutes to an hour, which slots nicely into a longer commute. The pace is quick, the jokes land more often than they miss, and there's a warmth to the whole production that keeps it from feeling mean-spirited even when the humor gets pointed. Sagal is a sharp host who knows when to let a joke breathe and when to move on.

It's genuinely one of the best shows for driving because the humor is clean enough for a car full of passengers, but clever enough that it doesn't feel watered down. You'll learn something about current events almost by accident, which is a nice bonus.

This American Life is the show that essentially invented the modern podcast format, even though it started as a radio program on WBEZ Chicago back in 1995. Hosted by Ira Glass, whose distinctive voice and narrative cadence have become synonymous with American storytelling, each weekly episode runs about an hour and explores a single theme through multiple acts.

The structure is what sets it apart. Each episode picks a theme -- sometimes obvious, sometimes oblique -- and then tells two to four stories that approach it from completely different angles. One act might be a deeply reported investigative piece, the next a personal essay, and the third a comedic monologue. The range is enormous. You might hear from a factory worker in Ohio, a scientist studying octopus consciousness, and a kid dealing with a bully, all in the same episode.

Glass has a particular talent for finding the emotional core of a story without being manipulative about it. The production values are meticulous. Sound design, pacing, music cues -- everything is carefully calibrated. It won the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to a radio show or podcast, which tells you something about the caliber of journalism here.

For driving, it's nearly perfect. The hour-long format fills a round-trip commute, and the storytelling is absorbing enough to make traffic jams tolerable. Fair warning: some episodes will make you feel things you weren't expecting to feel while sitting in your car. The show has been running for over 30 years now, and the back catalog alone could keep you company for months of commutes.

Shankar Vedantam has a gift for making behavioral science feel personal. Hidden Brain is routinely the number one science podcast in the United States, and after listening to a few episodes you will understand why. Vedantam takes research from psychology, neuroscience, and economics and turns it into stories about real human behavior, the kind of stuff that makes you rethink your own decisions.

The format is typically Vedantam in conversation with researchers and experts, but it never feels like an interview show. He weaves narrative throughout, using individual stories to illustrate broader scientific findings. An episode about procrastination might start with a woman who cannot bring herself to open her mail, then pivot to a study at a major university, then circle back to the personal story with new understanding.

Episodes arrive biweekly and tend to run between 50 minutes and an hour and a half. There are now over 660 episodes in the archive, rated 4.6 stars by more than 41,000 listeners. The pacing is deliberate. Vedantam does not rush through ideas, and he is not afraid of silence when a point needs to land.

What sets Hidden Brain apart from other psychology podcasts is its emotional range. Some episodes are genuinely moving. Others are unsettling in the best way, forcing you to confront biases you did not know you had. It is smart without being smug, and that balance is harder to pull off than it looks.

Guy Raz interviews the founders behind the world's most recognizable companies, and the conversations consistently go deeper than the usual startup success story. How I Built This releases episodes on Mondays and Thursdays, running anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Each interview follows a founder from their earliest days — the moment of inspiration, the initial failures, the funding struggles — through to the company becoming a household name. Raz has interviewed the people behind Airbnb, Spanx, Patagonia, Instagram, and hundreds more across 818 episodes. The show holds a 4.7-star rating from nearly 30,000 reviews. Raz is an exceptionally skilled interviewer. He asks follow-up questions that other hosts would miss, and he creates space for founders to talk about doubt and failure, not just triumph. The "Advice Line" episodes add a nice variation where previous guests mentor new entrepreneurs with specific problems. The educational value comes not from abstract business theory but from pattern recognition — listen to enough of these stories and you start noticing what successful founders have in common, and more interestingly, where they diverge completely. It is a masterclass in entrepreneurship delivered through personal narrative, and one of the best business podcasts for anyone who learns through stories rather than textbooks.

Stephen Dubner built a career on asking questions that economists are not supposed to ask, and Freakonomics Radio is where those questions get the full treatment. The podcast grew out of the bestselling book series he co-authored with Steven Levitt, but it has long since evolved beyond its origins into one of the most consistently interesting shows about how the world actually works.

Each week, Dubner picks a topic and peels back the layers. Why do some policies that sound great on paper fail completely in practice? What can wolves teach us about organizational behavior? How does the airline industry really make safety decisions? The episodes run 45 to 65 minutes and feature a mix of expert interviews, data analysis, and Dubner's own narration tying it all together.

With over 950 episodes and a 4.5-star rating from more than 30,000 reviews, the show has earned its reputation for rigorous but accessible thinking. Dubner is a skilled interviewer who pushes back on his guests without being combative. He genuinely wants to understand, and that curiosity comes through in every conversation.

The Freakonomics Radio Network has spawned several spinoffs, but the original remains the flagship for good reason. It takes the tools of economics and applies them to everyday life in ways that feel both surprising and obvious once you hear the explanation. That is a tough trick to repeat weekly for almost a thousand episodes, but Dubner keeps pulling it off.

Phoebe Judge has one of those voices that makes you stop what you're doing and just listen. Criminal takes a sideways approach to crime storytelling — instead of focusing purely on grisly details, it tells stories about people who have done wrong, been wronged, or found themselves tangled up somewhere in the middle. That framing opens the door to episodes you'd never expect from a true crime show. One week it's a story about a stolen dog, the next it's the history of lie detector tests, and then suddenly you're learning about a man who lived in the Paris airport for eighteen years.

The format is narrative-driven with Phoebe as the sole host, weaving together interviews and her own research into tight, polished episodes that rarely run longer than thirty minutes. With over 430 episodes since its launch, Criminal has built an enormous catalog without ever feeling repetitive. The production quality from Vox Media is consistently sharp, and the show earned a spot on the New York Times Best Podcasts of 2023 list for good reason.

What really sets Criminal apart is its refusal to sensationalize. The storytelling is deliberate, almost gentle at times, even when the subject matter is dark. If you're tired of breathless narration and dramatic music stings, this show is a refreshing change of pace. The 4.7-star rating across 36,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts tells you that a lot of people feel the same way. Criminal proves that true crime doesn't have to be loud to be compelling.

The Moth is live storytelling at its purest. Real people stand on a stage, under a spotlight, with nothing but a microphone and a roomful of strangers, and they tell true stories from their lives -- no notes, no scripts, no safety net. The podcast captures these performances and releases them on Tuesdays and Fridays, mixing episodes from The Moth Radio Hour (a Peabody Award winner) with original podcast-exclusive content.

The storytellers are ordinary people and occasional celebrities, and the range of topics is enormous. One episode might feature a firefighter describing the call that changed his career, followed by a grandmother recounting the time she accidentally smuggled cheese through customs. The stories are funny, heartbreaking, awkward, triumphant -- sometimes all at once. What makes them work is the live element. You can hear the audience react, and that shared energy between storyteller and crowd is something scripted podcasts can't replicate.

Each story runs about 10 to 15 minutes, and episodes typically feature two or three stories loosely connected by a theme. That structure makes it incredibly flexible for driving -- short commute? You'll get through at least one story. Long road trip? Queue up a bunch and let them roll.

The Moth has been running since 2008 in podcast form, though the live events go back to 1997. The back catalog is immense and endlessly rewarding. There's something about hearing someone's unscripted, unrehearsed truth that cuts through all the noise. It's storytelling stripped down to its essentials, and it's remarkably good company on the road.

Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas have been tearing apart terrible movies since 2010, and somehow the formula hasn't gotten old. How Did This Get Made? takes the worst films ever produced and turns them into comedy gold, with the three hosts bringing genuinely different perspectives. Scheer's the ringleader who keeps things moving, Raphael often voices what the audience is thinking with her exasperated reactions, and Mantzoukas brings unhinged energy that can derail a conversation in the best possible way.

The show runs on a biweekly schedule, with full episodes dropping every other Friday and "minisodes" filling the gaps. During minisodes, Scheer reads listener mail, fields corrections from eagle-eyed fans, and announces the next movie so listeners can watch along. With over 1,100 episodes in the catalog, they've covered everything from cheesy '80s action flicks and Lifetime thrillers to big-budget Hollywood disasters. Past guests include Seth Rogen, Conan O'Brien, Amy Schumer, Nicole Byer, and Charlize Theron.

Live episodes are a particular highlight. Recorded in front of sold-out audiences, they include fan Q&A sessions and original "second opinion" songs performed by audience members defending the movie. About 30 minutes of bonus material from each live show doesn't make it into the final cut, so attending in person is a different experience entirely.

The podcast is still actively producing new content in 2026, recently covering films like Netflix's "My Secret Santa." If you love bad movies or just want to laugh at Hollywood's most baffling creative decisions, this show has earned its reputation as the gold standard of bad-movie podcasts.

Malcolm Gladwell takes things you thought you understood and turns them sideways. Revisionist History re-examines events, people, ideas, and even songs from the past, asking a pointed question: did we get it right the first time? The answer, more often than not, is no.

Gladwell is a polarizing figure, and that is part of what makes the show compelling. He commits fully to his arguments, sometimes provocatively so. One season he spent multiple episodes on the problems with American higher education. Another time he dissected how country music evolved through a single song. He is at his best when he takes a small, overlooked detail and builds outward until you are seeing a familiar subject in an entirely new light.

The show is now on its fourteenth season, with 196 episodes total. Each runs about 35 to 45 minutes and is produced by Pushkin Industries with the kind of polish you expect from a professional audio house. The 4.7-star rating from over 58,000 reviews tells you that the show connects, even when listeners disagree with Gladwell's conclusions.

The storytelling style is novelistic. Gladwell does not just present facts; he builds narratives with characters, tension, and emotional payoffs. Some episodes feel like short stories that happen to be true. If you enjoy having your assumptions challenged, and you do not mind a host who occasionally gets under your skin on purpose, Revisionist History delivers that experience reliably.

Roman Mars made a podcast about design that somehow appeals to people who have never thought about design for a single second. That is the magic of 99% Invisible. The show covers the built world around us: why street signs look the way they do, how a hospital floor plan affects patient recovery, the story behind the flags that cities fly. Design, as Mars frames it, is everywhere you have stopped noticing.

With 780 episodes and counting, 99PI has covered an astonishing range of topics since 2010. Episodes typically run 30 to 40 minutes, which is just right for a commute or a walk. Mars has one of the most recognizable voices in podcasting, warm and measured, and the production quality from the team consistently ranks among the best in the industry.

The show earns its 4.8-star rating from over 25,000 reviews by being genuinely surprising. You go in thinking you are going to hear about architecture or urban planning, and you come out understanding something deeper about human behavior and the invisible systems that shape daily life. Recent episodes have expanded beyond pure design into related territories like infrastructure, politics, and cultural history.

If you have ever walked past a building and wondered why it looks the way it does, or noticed a weird detail on a street corner, this podcast will scratch that itch every single week.

SmartLess runs on a simple gimmick that somehow never gets old: each week, one of the three hosts surprises the other two with a mystery guest. Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett have been friends for years, and you can hear it in the way they interrupt each other, talk over the guest, and generally act like overgrown teenagers at a sleepover. It sounds chaotic, and honestly it kind of is, but the chemistry makes it work.

The guest list reads like a Hollywood awards ceremony seating chart. Former presidents, A-list actors, tech billionaires, musicians, athletes -- the range is absurd. But what keeps people coming back isn't the celebrity factor alone. It's watching Bateman try to steer toward something thoughtful while Arnett cracks jokes and Hayes commits to some bit that derails the whole conversation. The surprise element means the hosts are genuinely reacting in real time, which strips away that rehearsed feeling you get from so many interview shows.

With over 330 episodes and a 4.6-star rating from more than 53,000 reviewers, SmartLess has clearly found its audience. Episodes run about an hour and drop weekly. The show moved to SiriusXM for exclusive early access, but free episodes still come out on all the usual platforms. If you want polished, tightly edited interviews, this probably isn't your thing. But if you like hearing famous people get genuinely caught off guard and then watching three comedians try to one-up each other with follow-up questions, it's hard to beat.

Radiolab is the podcast that made sound design an art form. Hosts Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser carry forward the legacy that Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich built, and the show remains one of the most sonically inventive programs in audio. Episodes layer interviews, music, and ambient sound in ways that genuinely make your ears perk up.

The topics range across science, philosophy, law, and culture. One week you might hear about the ethics of CRISPR gene editing. The next, a courtroom drama about a forgotten civil rights case. The common thread is curiosity taken to its logical extreme: the team follows a question until they hit something surprising, then they follow that surprise even further.

Episodes land weekly and typically run 30 to 60 minutes, though some stretch past an hour when the story demands it. The show has over 800 episodes since launching in 2006, and it holds a 4.6-star rating from more than 42,000 reviews. There is a reason it keeps winning Peabody Awards.

Radiolab does not just explain things. It makes you feel the weight of a scientific discovery or the strangeness of a legal precedent. The production quality is a notch above almost everything else in podcasting, and the storytelling has a patience to it that rewards close listening. If you only subscribe to one knowledge podcast, you could do a lot worse than this one.