The 5th Dimension recorded "Go Where You Wanna Go" for their debut studio album in 1967, Up, Up and Away. The song was the group's first single to chart (after their first Soul City release, "Train Keep On Movin'", was unsuccessful), reaching number 16 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. It also did well in Canada. It is among the group's 10 biggest hits.
Producer Johnny Rivers suggested the group record the song.[7] According to Marilyn McCoo, "the record company wasn't going to release it as a single, but we put our whole thing into it, released it and it was a hit."[7]
The original version found new life some 50 years after it was released in a 2011 USA TV commercial about Medicare supplemental insurance.
In his memoir, Hitch-22, the journalist and writer Christopher Hitchens describes the importance of the song in motivating him to move to the United States from Britain.[13]