Road Trip Games for Kids and Families

The ten games at a glance

Car rules first

• The driver never looks at a screen. One passenger is in charge of the phone and reads everything aloud.
• Pause for the road. Stop the game whenever the driver needs quiet for traffic, directions or a busy exit.
• Everyone gets a turn, including the driver. Answering out loud is fine; reading is not.
• Short rounds. Stop a game while people still like it. You can come back to it in an hour.
• Have a no-screen game ready. Signal drops on long drives. I spy, alphabet signs and guess the animal need nothing.
• Listening rounds for carsick kids. Children who feel sick when they read can still play I spy, guess the animal or letter categories while a passenger reads aloud.

Games with nothing at all

I spy. One player picks something everyone can see and says "I spy with my little eye something that is..." and a color. Pick things inside the car for small kids, since things outside go past too fast.

Alphabet signs. Find the letters A to Z, in order, on signs, trucks and buildings. Play as a team for young kids, or race each other with older ones. Q and Z can take a while, which is part of the fun. On country roads with few signs, switch to alphabet things: spot an animal, a barn or a car starting with each letter instead.

Guess the animal. One player thinks of an animal. The others ask yes-or-no questions until someone guesses it. Start with "Does it live on land?" and "Can it fly?" to narrow it down fast.

Games with the question and yes or no generators

Would you rather. Open the Random Question Generator, set Question type to Would You Rather and For to Kids. The passenger reads a question and everyone answers with a reason. No saying "both". The kids list has 55 questions, enough for a long drive. For a twist, everyone guesses what the driver will choose before the driver answers, and a correct guess earns a point.

Yes or no story. Start a story: "Once there was a dog who wanted to fly." Each kid asks a yes-or-no question about what happens next, like "Does the dog find a balloon?", and the passenger presses Ask on the Yes or No Generator. The story has to follow the answer. Turn on Include Maybe for twists.

Games with the word and letter generators

Rhyme time. Open the Random Word Generator, set Ends with to a sound like ake and Word length to 3–4 letters. Read one word and go around the car naming rhymes until someone gets stuck. Try at too: it returns cat and hat, but also boat and heat, which look like rhymes and are not. A nice surprise for early readers.

Three-word story. Generate three words of any type. Each person tells one sentence of a story, and all three words have to be used by the end of the round. With lantern, gallop and fuzzy, it might start: "A fuzzy pony found a lantern by the road and galloped off into the dark."

Word chain. Generate one word to start. The next player says a word that starts with the last letter of that word, and so on. Snake, egg, goat, tiger. No repeats allowed. For a harder version, everything has to be an animal, or a food.

Letter categories. On the Random Letter Generator, choose the Category Game preset and press Generate. The passenger names a category, like animals, foods or cities, and everyone races to say an answer starting with the letter.

Silly initials. Set Number of letters to 3. Everyone makes up what the letters stand for: B, T, F could be Big Tired Frog or Bring The Fries. The car votes for the best one.

Categories for the letter game

Twelve categories that work well in a car, picked for this page. Start with the easy column and move right as the kids get faster.

Night drives and winter trips

After dark, I spy changes to I spy lights: a red light, a blinking light, a string of holiday lights on a house. Alphabet signs still works on lit signs and gas stations.

For winter holiday drives, pick seasonal questions. The kids would-you-rather list has a few that fit, like building a snowman or a sandcastle, and having a snow day every week or a three-day weekend every week. Give letter categories a winter theme: things that are cold, things you wear in the snow, foods you eat on a holiday.

By age

Keeping it fun for a whole day

• Mix quiet and loud. Follow a shouting game like letter categories with a calm one like I spy.
• Let kids pick the next game. Rotate who chooses, oldest to youngest.
• Keep score lightly. Points for the funniest answer work better than points for the fastest, especially with mixed ages.
• Stop before the fight. If a game turns into an argument, switch games instead of settling who was right.
• Save a favorite for the last hour. The end of a long drive is when everyone is most tired. Keep the game the kids liked best for then.