If you’re not travelling with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, you’re not doing it properly. Sure, you could travel with the same earphones you use on your 30-minute commute, but don’t be surprised when they’re uncomfortable and you can’t even hear your movie, audiobook or podcast.
Buses and trains are loud. Aircraft cabins are louder. In fact, at take-off and landing noise levels inside the cabin can reach 105 decibels (dB). At cruising altitudes, it’s about 85 dB. This is why pilots have for decades been wearing headphones that produce sound waves to physically cancel out ambient noise.
Now you can, too.
For frequent long-haul flyers, noise-cancelling headphones are standard issue or, at least, they ought to be. That white noise a big aircraft’s engines and air-con systems produce is a killer. Cue a precise arrangement of microphones inside and outside the ear-cups of noise-cancelling headphones that continuously measure, compare and react to the sound waves they detect.
Essentially creating sound waves to cancel out the low frequencies, the latest trend is for noise-cancelling headphones to go wireless. However, a lot of models are both bulky and expensive, which means that you do have to shop around if you want something more compact or more affordable.
Luckily, noise-cancelling earphones are now coming of age, with some great quality products to pick from across the price range.
If you're looking to fully update your travel kit, then you'll need to make sure your headphones are packed inside the best suitcase or best carry-on luggage and you'll want to read T3's ultimate travel guide. And if you want something that'll let you drop off en route, you might want to also consult our guide to the best sleep headphones.
The best headphones for travel
Why you can trust T3 Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
We've found two companies dominate wireless noise-cancelling headphones; Bose and Sony. When it comes to bulky wireless noise-cancelling headphones aimed at business travellers, for every benchmark Bose, there's a Sony lurking in the shadows.
The newest of the lot, Sony's WH-1000XM5 – announced in 2022 – come with a number of useful upgrades over the XM4 that we think are perfect for travellers. They still boast market-leading noise-cancelling, but now also have Bluetooth 5.2 for wireless connectivity, and USC-PD (‘power delivery’) charging, so a mere three minutes of charging is good for three hours of playback. That's perfect if you're just about to get on a long haul flight and need a quick juice up.
The ANC itself is adaptive relative to your circumstances. The XM5 will learn (or can be told) about your most commonly visited locations and can (if you wish) adapt itself to suit.
While the Sony WH-1000XM5 don’t come cheap, in our review, we found the combination of sonic fidelity, top-tier active noise-cancellation, flawless ergonomics, competitive battery life and impeccable eco-credentials, these are hands-down the best headphones for travel.
The Bose QC35 and QC35 II were an icon of travel headphones – catch any rush-hour train and board any flight, and you will see black and silver Bose headphones peaking out from the top of almost every headrest.
Now, there's a new model in town. The literally-named Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 introduce a sleek new design that is both lightweight and elegant. Behind the smart look, the headphones still pack 11 adjustable levels of top-notch noice cancellation, impressive audio quality, and up to 20 hours of wireless battery life.
Like with many of today's headphones, either Alexa or Google Assistant can be summoned with the press of a button, while the stainless steel headband and padded, angled ear cups are designed to put comfort first.
To bag a great deal check our Bose discount codes.
Bowers & Wilkins PX7 is the kind of outstanding product that B&W built a global reputation on. It combines all their hard-won expertise in audio manufacture with cutting-edge noise cancellation and looks stunning as well
We think the headphones sound great, with B&W's usual exciting, but well balanced, signature sound. In fact, we'd say they sound slightly better than the other big-ticket noise-cancelling headphones.
The PX7 also features motion-sensing, which means if you lift a cup from your ear, the sound is paused, and if you take them off entirely, they go into standby mode. We found that's very useful when travelling, as you'll frequently need to remove them to talk to people.
If you're a Sony fan but need portability from your carry-on earphones, then the WF-1000XM4 are for you. Sony claims these tiny earphones offer improvements in every area, including noise cancellation, over their predecessors, while maintaining a compact design and pocket-sized charge case.
Battery life is eight hours for the earphones themselves, that's longer than Apple's AirPods Pro, and up to 24 hours when you top them up using the charge case.
In our review, we said 'while the QuietComfort Earbuds may have them beaten for noise cancelling, Sony’s buds sound a fair bit better than Bose’s overall. Sony WF-1000XM4 are the complete package.'
When Apple launched its AirPods Pro we couldn't believe white how good their active noise cancelling was. Despite their tiny size, they block out plenty of ambient sound passively with a good, comfortable fit, then create near-silence when the active noice cancelling is switched on.
Their touch controls are easy to use and if you are a fully paid-up member of the Apple ecosystem you can enjoy the AirPods' ability to automatically switch between your iPhone, iPad and Mac, depending on how you use them.
Battery life is 4.5 hours for the earphones themselves, with a further 24 hours of playback possible by popping them into the charging case every few hours. That can be a bit fo a drag on a long-hawk flight, but their pocket-friendly convenience more than makes up for it.
Created to celebrate the brand's 95th anniversary, the Beoplay H95 might just be the most luxe and stylish travel headphones on this list. A combination of exceptional adaptive active noise cancellation, incredible comfort, sleek design, and outstanding sound performance makes H95 the perfect travel companion for first-class globetrotters.
The headphones have been created from luxurious metal and fabrics to deliver an ultra-premium product in both build-quality and long-lasting comfort. They're equipped with high-quality titanium drivers tuned to Bang & Olufsen’s signature sound.
If you want to listen to music at its very best on your next trip away, with good noice cancelling too, the Shure Aonic 50 are an excellent pair of headphones. Shure took its time to get into the headphone market, but not it's fear we are big fans, and this year awarded the Aonic 50 our Platinum Award and have them the full five-star treatment.
The headphones have a wide range of audio codecs to get the best out of your music, and have superb build quality and great design. The only drawback here is how the Shure's have a tendency to highlight the shortcomings of older and lesser-quality audio. But feed them with quality sound and you'll be in for a treat.
These noise-cancelling, Bluetooth headphones from Cleer are fantastic value. For less than £250 / $300 you get a pair of great-sounding headphones with a long list of premium features. The Flow II's boast up-to 20 hours playback with noise-cancelling enabled (that's most flights around the world covered). As for the quality of noise-cancelling? That's up there with the best from Sony and Bose.
Our two favourite features (other than the excellent sound quality) is Google Fast Pair, which makes pairing with Android phones a breeze, and Conversation Mode, which temporarily disengages ANC and automatically lowers the volume of whatever you're listening to when you place your hand over the left ear cup.
The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay E8 Sport won’t fit into many people’s budget, especially those who are looking for a dedicated pair of earbuds to work out in. It’s hard to justify the price since there are a lot of solid, cheaper options that are just as feature-rich. There’s also the fact that the E8 Sports may not provide the kind of sound signature you like. You’ll find most of the competition to be brighter than these.
However, if the price doesn’t scare you off and you prefer warmer audio, then you would be hard-pressed to find a better pair. Not only do the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay E8 Sport earbuds sound terrific, but they’re also beautifully designed from the customizable tips and fins down to their intuitive UI. Considering all that, its price starts to make a lot more sense and therefore, is justifiable.
The effort and thought that B&O put into these are apparent. The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay E8 Sport are not just another set of earbuds. They're a work of art.
Are these the best Beats ever? These wireless noise-cancelling headphones’ killer feature is the way noise control can adapt to the ambient noise around you, whether that's aircraft engine noise, wind, or the jibber-jabber of other travellers.
The anti-wind mode is impressive since a stiff breeze is often the nemesis of noise-cancelling headphones because of the way they use microphones to monitor ambient sound. However, an algorithm in the Beats Studio3 fades-out wind within a few seconds. In fact, it’s a silky noise-cancelling performance all-round because these are one of the rare pairs of headphones where you just don't 'hear' the noise cancellation process as much as you do with other really good ANC cans.
Happily, the Beats Studio3 are also the best sounding of the Studio range to date, with a detailed sonic signature throughout. Also handy is a ‘fast fuel' feature that gives three hours of playback from a 10-minute charge, and easy pairing and device switching as found on Apple’s AirPods.
How we test the best headphones for travel
We spend a lot of time reviewing the latest headphones, so when it comes to recommending which are the best headphones for travel to buy, you can be safe in the knowledge that we'll recommend the best options for you.
We'll usually spend a week or longer testing the latest noise-cancelling headphones. We try out the very latest features to see if they work and if they're useful. This might be a noise-cancelling feature, a new app function, or a voice assistant. We test everything in-depth, with audio experts reviewing each pair thoroughly.
All of these new features also get tested alongside everything a pair of headphones should be classically good at, such as sound quality, noise-cancelling ability, how long the battery lasts, and how comfortable they are to wear for long periods of time.
Once the initial review period is complete we'll publish a full review, give the headphones a star rating, and add an abridged review to this guide.
