August 1 2022

The Best Places to Listen to Audiobooks

If you’re like me, and I assume you are (I may be the only one actually reading this), you find it hard to carve out time to read everyday. We’re all super busy with life and unfortunately reading often gets pushed to the back burner. But that is what makes audiobooks so great, they allow you to multitask and still squeeze in “reading” even when you’re busy. (Okay, in all honesty I can barely read, that’s why I listen to audiobooks, I have loads of free time.)

First to address the elephant in the room – listening to audiobooks is still ‘reading’. We wrote a non-biased, non-defensive blog on this very subject already. Audiobook listeners should never have to apologize for multitasking and still enjoying books! We’ve been persecuted too long!

Any way, to the list of best places, we’re going to rank them since that’ll make it a bit more fun. So here are the top 5 places to listen to audiobooks (strong likelihood these change in the future):

#5 – Cooking/Preparing a Meal

This isn’t going to be for everyone – but resident chef and cooking expert D-man (follow along here) swears by it. As he says “Audiobooks allow me to multitask and do what I love most: cooking and reading books. I also love to ‘cook the books’, so if there is anyone out that needs help with committing fraud feel free to reach out.” For the average folk who needs to strictly follow directions and has no idea what they’re doing in the kitchen audiobook listening and cooking may be a bit much. Or you might say… It’d be like throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the equation. It’d create a situation where there are just too many cooks in the kitchen… But if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

#4 – Playing Video Games

Another one that probably isn’t for everyone but this is a great life hack. Do you like playing mindless video games after a long day of work, but always feel bad about ‘wasting time’? Throw on an audiobook and still kill those zombies but feel more productive while doing it. If only audiobooks were an option when I was growing up, I could have been crushing reading assignments whilst playing some GoldenEye. Things would have been so different… I would have been class president, valedictorian and a star football player had I only known this. Instead I actually did the reading assignments while not playing GoldenEye and here I am today.

#3 – Hiking

This one may be a bit controversial but as someone that has never been a big hiker this changed the game. Biggest issue with hiking is it is a bit repetitive, for someone that needs constant stimuli, longer activities that don’t involve competition were always tough for me to get into. Adding the challenge of the hike + the enjoyment of a good audiobook really made things a lot more fun. Some will say ‘why would you be listening to something, you should be enjoying the sounds of nature’, to that I say, ‘the sounds of nature are for the birds (literally)’. A lot of people listen to music, a lot of people hike with friends (must be nice), but try listening to an audiobook on your next hike and tell me it doesn’t augment the experience.

#2 – The Beach or Pool

Peanut butter and jelly, burger and fries, batman and robin, me and disappointing my parents, the beach and reading. Some of the greatest combinations ever. Nothing like chilling with your feet in the sand/water, beer in hand and audiobook in the headphones. Relaxation personified. We made a whole Best Summer Beach Books blog about this as well. And for those of us who like just to hang out on the beach and get a good tan going (I’m a big tanner myself as we discussed on the Terminal List podcast), a physical book can be quite annoying in this regard. Audiobook allows you to get that golden tan without having to block the sun with your book or worry about straining to read on one particular side (I honestly have no idea if this tanning commentary is right, but I’m going with it).

#1 Commuting to Work

Insert Benny Affleck’s Boston accent: “You know what the best part of my day is?” Answer: the morning commute listening to a good book before having to work. It’s like meditation before a long work day. Hate traffic, hate commuting – listen to an audiobook and change your whole outlook. Packed in like a can of sardines on the subway train on a Monday morning? My mind is in the vast wilderness of Hatchet (and wishing I had a hatchet to create some space…) Your in bumper to bumper traffic? Whatever, my mind is in Hogwarts (probably not the safest thing while driving but I’m just imaging casting the flying charm). Nothing makes a commute easier than a good audiobook and it is the main reason I got back into reading in the first place. So commuting to work will always be the #1 place to listen to audiobooks for me.