The holiday season is almost upon us. For many families, that means at least one road trip. Whenever we travel more than an hour-and-a-half in the car, we hook up our portable DVD player – it keeps the kids entertained (and not fighting), which makes for a much happier car ride.
Ahh to be so lucky on your next trip - Photo by emrank
But what to do when your kids are tired of videos? Yes, as shocking as this seems, it can happen. Or worse, the DVD player suddenly quits working (try explaining beforehand that kicking the screen is not a good idea). You need travel games – fast. Here are some of the tried-and-true mobile options that just may make your next car ride a little less painful. And all you need is a notepad and pencil.
Tic-Tac-Toe
This one is self explanatory, but your child will probably need to be school-aged to play. And some kids get headaches when reading or writing in the car.
Hang-Man
You kids have to be able to spell for this one. Again, watch out for signs of motion sickness, which become more prevalent when reading or writing in the car.
License plate ABCs
Each member of the family looks at license plates for the next letter in the alphabet. This game is great for preschoolers learning their letters – and older kids who are competitive.
I Spy
There is one rule to playing this game: the item you spy really should be in the car – and visible to all occupants. Otherwise you can pass it long before anyone can guess what it is.
Skip Counting
Even little kids can play this game. Start counting by twos, then try fives or tens. For older kids, ask them to do more difficult options like sevens, nines and 13s. This helped my oldest daughter learn multiplication in kindergarten.
Counting 18-wheelers
Or white cars, black trucks, whatever is of interest to your kids at any given moment. Bonus: this game teaches sorting and counting skills in a fun way.
What’s your favorite go-to car game? We’d love to hear from you.
By Anna Philpot
Hello Anna,
great list of car games! It is important to keep kids busy while driving. There is so many fun games they can play instead of putting them in front of a portable DVD player. At Fox Rent A Car Blog we like to give travel advice to help people enjoy and smooth and fun trip. That’s why we also wrote a post on Car games for kids.
thanks again for sharing
When talking about car games, the excitement that the player feels really depends on the graphics. Who wants to play a game that actually looks boring? There still a lot of free games out there in the net better than this.
When I was a kid my grandpa used to tell us he’d give us a penny for every cow we were able to count. Now, we are in Texas so there are many cows along the way! Also, my grandmother would always have a plastic bag of little games, coloring books, and goodies for each of us kids, plus she’d give us each $20 for us to use in the convenient stores along the way. That was always something to look forward to. And then she would bring a sing-along book with old songs like “Oh Susanna” – those were always so much fun for us when we were traveling on long road trips.