Ok help me remember...

[Mynyel]

It has been awhile since a long road trip. I need games to play on the road.

 

Only one rule. You can only use your brain. I don't want games with pieces or anything that requires batteries. Preferably things that involve the rolling countryside :) But that may be asking to much..

 

So... :bigear:

[AnthemLights]

The two that we play a lot are "I spy" and the "alphabet" game - the one where you see who can first find the letters of the alphabet in order on billboards, license plates, etc...

 

My favorite is "a is for apple". A test of memory and concentration, this game runs through the alphabet with each person assigning a word to the 26 letters, and the following person has to repeat the previous letters and words then add another. Beginning with "A is for apple (or whatever)," the next person says "A is for apple, B is for bowling," and so on until you get to z. So much fun once the children are a little older...:D

 

I love road trips. Have fun.

[Dobela]

My parents allowed us a small spiral notebook and a pen each. We made lists of animals seen - dead or alive LOL-, states on car tags, names of 3 Elvis songs played on the radio, and so on. Whatever my parents told us to make a list of. In between we played hangman, make a line from dot games, tic tac toe, and so on.

[bbmom]

COUNTING COWS: Play as individuals or teams. First, decide on a destination where you will stop counting. Then, count the cows on your side of the road. The goal is to have the highest number when the destination is reached. Pass a cemetery on your side and you have to start over again. If there aren't any cows on your route, try counting red cars, mailboxes or phone booths.

 

(When we used to do this one the other team would have to see the cemetery and call out "your cows are buried")

 

 

TWENTY QUESTIONS: One player thinks of a famous person, place or thing. Everyone else gets to ask the player 20 questions, which must be answered "yes" or "no." For example, "Does it know how to read?" is a valid question, but "What's its favorite book?" is not. Whoever guesses correctly gets a turn to think up something.

 

 

 

GEOGRAPHY: Start with any place in the world--Kansas, for example. The next person has to think of a place that begins with the last letter of "Kansas," such as "South Africa." Whoever goes next needs a place that starts with an A. You may not use the same place twice in a game--and it has to be a real place.

 

 

 

A IS FOR ARMADILLO: Starting with A, each person tries to be the first to spot and name three items beginning with that letter. For example, the first to see and announce "armadillo, auto and apple" gets to choose the next letter.

 

 

LICENSE PLATE ID: See how many different states you can identify on license plates.

 

 

 

LICENSE PLATE LINGO: The goal of this game is to come up with a phrase using the letters on another car's plate. So if you see the plate LMT 823, the first person to call out a somewhat logical phrase such as "Love me tender" or "Lost my tooth" earns a point.

 

 

 

ODDS, EVENS: Two players pick either "odds" or "evens." Then they make a fist, shake it, say, "One, two, three...shoot," and stick out one or two fingers. If the total is an odd number, the player who picked odds wins. Same goes for evens. (we play this using only thumbs and you have to call a number 0-4 -if the number of thumbs raised is the same as the number you call, you get a point, if it's not the same, play switches to the other player)

 

 

 

(along this line they could also play rock, paper scissors)

[cjzimmer1]

my kids have played a game where one person says a word (say small for example) the next person has to think of a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word (so L in this example) and they keep naming words. The older kids trying to think of words ending in z so that the next person has a harder time picking a word. We don't allow repeats (or adding an suffix) of previous words.

[RebeccaS]

My kids are crazy for "I'm thinking of an animal that begins with the letter ___". You may ask as many questions as necessary to guess it, but they must be yes or no questions. We all have fun trying to pick the weirdest animal possible to stump the crew. DH needs a new one, though. The kids are on to his Hairy Armadillo and Hagfish. :lol:

 

ETA: You could change it to anything, really. Geography, people, whatever. We stick with animals because that's what the kids know best right now. :)

[beaners]

We have fun picking a less commonly seen color like yellow or orange and shouting out a code word like "spam" every time we see it.

[Meriwether]

Would you have paper and pencil? We used to play the number game a lot.

 

Person A picks a four digit number (no duplicate numbers) and Person B tries to guess it.

 

Example: Person A picks 9217

 

Person B guesses 8273.

 

Person A tells them they got two of the numbers and one of them in the correct position. The next guess might be 4517.

 

On paper it would look like this:

 

8273 2 1

4597 1 0

 

Once the kids get good at it, it is possible to get the right answer in 5-8 guesses depending on initial luck. It might take them longer at first, but it is a good logic exercise.

[Meriwether]

Oh, we play pinks, too.

[myfunnybunch]

We have the same travel rule: No electronics. We're all trapped in a very small space together, and it makes for good conversation and fun when no one is tuned out. 2-3 times a year, we have an all-day drive to visit my father, and the road trip is one of my favorite parts of a great trip because we spend a lot of time talking and playing together.

 

We play many of the preciously suggested games when we travel. :) Another favorite is an "I Spy" take off: I make a list of 4-6 likely and unlikely things we'll see on the trip, and they look for them. Things like three red cars in a row, a hawk on a fencepost, a running animal, a barge on the river, the letter "Q" and a train with more than ten cars. Once they've seen all of the items, they win and I make a new list.

 

We like story-telling games. Family story, each person telling a part of the story and passing it off to the next person by saying, "And then.....Dad!" (And dh will tell the next part of the story, say "And then...." and name the next person.) Or who can tell the silliest story about a chicken, a pickle and a penny? We each tell a story, then vote on the silliest.

 

My kids also like to have an activity book (mazes, word searches, etc.), sketch pad and colored pencils so that they can quietly occupy themselves individually.

 

Have fun! :)

 

Cat

[NanceXToo]

You could do a scavenger hunt type thing...make a list of things you might pass...certain kinds of cars/trucks/motorcycles, schools, cemeteries, parks, fast food restaurants, post office, farm, tall building, so on and so forth and give the kids a check list type thing.

 

You could make a list of the types of things people might be doing in their cars and see who can be the first one to find people doing those things... eating something, drinking something, smoking a cigarette, talking on a phone, "dancing" to music, picking their nose (haha), you get the idea.