Top Road Trip Games
The bags are packed, the kids are strapped in, and now the only thing left is hours and hours of open road before you reach your destination.
This could get rough. Boredom and frayed nerves during a long car ride have gotten many a vacation off to a rough start, and that's why games exist. Make the trip just as much fun as the destination with these easy and entertaining road trip games.
Grocery Game
Also known as the Picnic Game, the Grocery Game is a great alphabet-based game for kids. It really tests your memory, too, no matter how old you are. The first player says, "I'm going to the grocery store to buy some ..." then he names something that starts with the letter A, like apples. The next person says, "I'm going to the grocery store to buy some apples and ..." then she has to add something that starts with B, C, D and so on.
License Plate Game
The License Plate Game has a few variations. The goal is usually to spot a license plate from each of the 50 states. Everyone in the car can work as a team to collect them all, or you can compete to see who can spot them all first.
20 Questions
This is a classic all-ages game that probably kept your grandparents occupied while they drove around in their Model T. The rules of 20 Questions are simple: Whoever goes first thinks of something—anything at all—and everyone else in the car gets to ask 20 questions to figure out what it is. Have everyone take turns asking questions until someone figures it out. If nobody gets it after 20 questions, the person who thought of the item wins and gets to announce it triumphantly to the rest of the car.
Singing Game
The Singing Game is great if you've got a car full of music buffs, and this quick-thinking song-based game will really keep you on your toes. One person starts the game by singing a line to a popular song, then the next person has to use the last word of that line to connect with the first word from a line to a different song. Around and around it goes until somebody gets stumped or messes up a lyric. By the time you’re done, you'll have created a whole new song using lines from different tunes.
Swear Jar
A great game for grown-up road trips, Swear Jar is easy to play but it might cost you. Someone in the car chooses a word—not necessarily a swear word but an everyday word that people use all the time. No one in the car is allowed to say that word from this point on. Whenever someone slips, he has to write his name on a slip of paper and put it in the "swear jar." Whoever's name ends up in the jar the most has to do something for everyone else in the car, like fill up the gas tank or buy snacks at the next rest stop.
I Spy (With My Little Eye)
I Spy has been keeping road-tripping families from losing their minds for generations, and it's still one of the easiest games to play in the car. One person spots something out the window and says, "I spy a ..." then adds a clue like the object's color or what letter it starts with. Whoever guesses what it is first is the winner and gets to pick his own object for the others to guess.
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