A line from the first song written for the album perhaps sums up the project as a whole best: "there's always been a stranger in my soul / who loves a good goodbye and a good hello," she sings in "Tourist"; On Palomino, her inner stranger travels lyrically from Fort Worth to the Mojave Desert; Battambang, Cambodia to Maine; the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield to the Rocky Mountains and beyond. In each destination and with every character met along the way, Lambert's freewheeling trek is a work of unbridled freedom and self-discovery without painful introspection.

"The making of this record has been one of the most fun and creative experiences of my career," reflects the woman who holds the title of most-awarded artist in ACM history. "Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby, and I went out to my farm in Tennessee in 2020 and started writing songs. We figured while we have time let's get out to the country and see what happens. The first one we wrote was 'Tourist' and that set us on a path to create something with a bit of a theme. Since we couldn't travel at the time, we decided to go on a journey through songs. I hope y'all are ready to travel with us wandering spirits and meet some cool characters with great stories."