10 Road Trip Games for the Long Haul

Road trips are the quintessential vacation for American families. You may have a fun trip planned to Disneyland, the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore, and you plan to drive there to see sights along the way. If you have kids, then you know that they eventually get restless on long road trips and car rides. Help keep the peace and your sanity intact by suggesting these road trip games for the whole family!

Road Trip Games for Kids

Consumer Reports estimates that about 56 million Americans are expected to take a road trip sometime in 2018. Road trip games are excellent ways to keep kids engaged during long trips and to prevent them from bickering. Instead of pesting each other, road trip games are a better way to channel kid’s energy and attention. Here are some great road trip games that kids can enjoy:

1. The License Plate Game: The classic game where everyone in the car tries to find all the license plates of the 50 states. You can even buy game boards for this road trip game for everyone if you want. All players have to find the 50 states and one license plate can’t count for two people.
2. Singing Games: Especially if you have little ones, singing can help them when they’re stuck in the back seat. You can sing them all the songs you know, teach them new songs or get everyone in the car to sing different rounds of the same song at different times.
3. I Spy: Another classic game, this is when one player “spies” something of a certain color either in the car or outside of it and the first person to guess what the object is wins. That person then gets to choose an object.
4. Categories: One player chooses a category and a specific letter and each person in the car has to say something that belongs in that category. For instance, if you say “animals” and the letter “A”, then everyone must say animals such as “ape”, “antelope”, etc. until someone repeats a letter or takes too long. The player who wins chooses the next category and letter.
5. Bring Games: You don’t have to make up road trip games if you bring your own! Bring all your favorite games that can be played in a car without losing small pieces. For smaller children, have them each bring a shoebox or other container full of arts and crafts, word searches, hangman and other activities that can keep them entertained.

Road Trip Games for the Adults

Games aren’t just for children. Many adults enjoy games just as much, if not more than children do. Here are some examples:

1. Six Degrees of Separation: Players must make relationships from two unrelated famous people, films, songs, and other similar categories. If a movie star and a singer are named, players must make a connection between the two in 6 links or less. An example is found here.
2. Would You Rather?: This is a game where one player will ask another if they would rather do “undesirable option A” or “undesirable option B”. Then, players choose which they would choose if they had to. This game is an interesting way to see what players say. An example is: Would you rather eat a bowl of worms or a bowl of beetles?
3. 21 Questions: One player picks an object and another can ask up to 21 yes or no questions to figure out what the object is.
4. Points Games: If you are in an area with a lot of traffic, you can always assign certain points to specific cars or colors of cars. Everytime you see that vehicle, you call it first to gain a point. You can choose what vehicles count as points. Calling something wrong is a negative point.
5. Guess the Song: For music lovers, one player can randomly choose songs on a playlist and the other player has to guess the singer or the title in a certain amount of time.

Sometimes adults enjoy classics such as the Alphabet Game, Never Have I Ever, Fortunately and Unfortunately and more as well.

Things To Do Before Your Trip

Usually people are thinking of the places they will go and all the sites they will see when they travel. However, none of that may happen if your car stops working on the first day. You could find yourself stranded on the open road, where assistance may take forever to get to you. Here are a few things you should do before you take off on your trip:

• Have your car fully serviced and checked for anything that could be wrong. Even if you have gotten your car serviced recently, it never hurts to get it looked at again. Often, if your car is in good shape, you won’t need any services done besides it getting checked
• Wash your car. Dirty cars can make it hard to see well out the windows, which increases your risk of not seeing other drivers.
• Make sure your air conditioning works. Nobody enjoys a long car ride if it’s 100 degrees both outside and inside the car.
• Get food and water for your car that can last you at least a day. If you do have car problems and get stranded, you at least won’t be without water or food. Also pack items such as pillows and blankets.
• Have several forms of cash (cash itself, cards, checks) in case only certain forms are accepted the places you go.

Enjoy Your Ride

Road trips can be quite exciting, but they can also be very long if you don’t plan for them correctly. Do all the service you need to on your car so your vacation days aren’t spent in a shop. Then make sure you plan with food and road trip games to make the traveling time much more enjoyable. For more tips on what to do with your car before a big road trip, call Scott’s Fort Collins Auto today at (970) 682-4202!