The invention discloses a traveling wave distance measurement method adapt to power transmission line intensive thunderbolts. The traveling wave distance measurement method is suitable for line protection traveling wave distance measurement integrated device, and comprises the steps of: identifying lightning traveling waves by utilizing the characteristic that amplitude of three phases of lightning traveling waves are approximate; setting a sensitive traveling wave starting criterion to prevent refused action of traveling waves, regarding a starting or action signal of relay protection as a confirmation criterion for traveling wave starting to prevent mistaken starting of the traveling waves, and realizing one-to-one correspondence between protection starting or protection actions and traveling wave starting; adopting a large-scale FPGA and a large-capacity DDR to realize no-dead-zone recording of fault travelling waves through the cooperation of a two-level caching technology; and selecting a line-mode traveling wave signal to perform traveling wave distance measurement according to signal amplitude, so as to eliminate interference of lightning waves on traveling wave distance measurement. By adopting the traveling wave distance measurement method, the traveling wave distance measurement reliability and distance measurement precision of the line protection traveling wave distance measurement integrated device under the operating condition of intensive thunderbolts can be improved, and the traveling wave distance measurement method has good application prospect.