Road Trips. Driving holidays. Four-wheel-drive adventures. Exploring days. We do it all as much as we can as a family. There is huge list of (non-tech) ways to entertain kids here, and if you’re looking for the top 10 games to play on a road trip, below are the winners!
Image used with permission from Party Bags and Supplies
Print it for the car here.
1. I Spy
This is a fabulous way to fill in a few minutes or long periods. Find tips for playing “I spy with my little eye…” here.
2. Road Trip Bingo
Before the trip, make your own bingo cards. Insert a table into a Word document and fill the boxes with clips art (or images) of signs, animal or places relevant to your trip. Along the journey, the first one to cross off all the items wins! (An ice-cream for the winner maybe?) More detailed instructions and game variations here.
Tip: Laminate the cards and use sticker dots (so you can reuse the cards)
3. Licence Plates
There are many ways to play this game.
- See who can find the highest (or lowest) number
- Look for names and words
- Hunt for plates starting with a particular letter
- Closest to a number
Tip: Look out for Taxi numbers (they are often larger numbers)
4. Naughts and Crosses
Print of a few pages of grids and have pens available for this classic game. You can print off grids for free here.
5. I’m going on a picnic (or holiday)
Take turns to work your way through the alphabet and name items to take.
“I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing an apple.”
“I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing an apple and banana.”
“I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing and apple, a banana and a carrot.”
6. Questions
Road trips facilitate time to talk and ask questions. Look for an online quiz, ask questions and research the answer on a smart phone or play Who Am I?
7. Connecting the dots
I loved this game as a child! Printable and instructions here.
8. Hangman
This classic is always a winner with our kids. All you need is paper and a pen (a small white board or magna doodles works well too). More detailed instructions here.
9. The Preachers Cat
Another alphabet game. Take turns of naming the cat, starting with A (Albert, Angela, Anna etc.) until you run out of ideas. Then move on to B. This can get hilarious!
10. Spot the car
Many, many possibilities here!
- Look for car brands: Toyota, Ford, Holden, Nissan, Mazda, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Alfa Romeo, Kia, Range Rover, Jeep, Audi, Volvo, Mitsubishi, Honda, Hyundai.
- Look for colours: red, blue, pink, green
- Mix it up: Look for a blue Ford. Look for a Ford with a number plate starting with P.
1 Comment
Jacquie
February 6, 2015 at 12:34 pmLove the list! We are big on road trip games too — there’s one we play called “Zip, I’ve got a horse” that you play in the country when you can spot horses. Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s a ‘real’ game or just one my Dad made up but we love to play it.
And here in the US, we look for license plates for each state when we’re on road trips — we actually found all 50 plates during one of our road trips!