The excited mood that everyone in the car is feeling at the start of the journey will soon start to fade away as the hours tick by, so it would be a good idea to prepare for the road trip and have some activities and games ready to go when boredom sets in.
Here is a look at some tips and strategies to make your road trip a success, including details of games that don’t need any props to play, plus some suggestions for using your smartphone for some fun activities, and a game that offers the chance to spot when someone might not be telling the truth!
Easy to entertain
It is often the way that the best ideas are the simplest ones and there are loads of different games you can play in the car with the kids that will help pass the time quickly and keep them fully entertained and engaged.
Even better still, you can quickly get these games going in the car without needing any props to play.
Two simple games that your kids will enjoy playing involve the alphabet and colors. The alphabet game is about running through from A-Z and taking it in turns to spot something outside of the car that starts with the letter you are on for your turn.
The color game is a chance for friendly competition and once you have agreed on a specific color for each round of the game, the first person to spot ten cars in the color first will be the winner.
Phone fun
There are a number of apps you could download on your smartphone to provide some instant entertainment when the kids are getting a bit fractious and unruly.
You might want to try this coloring book app for Android as a way to calm them down. Kids love coloring and drawing and it is an activity that helps to calm them down, and using the app means you don’t have to worry about crayons on the seats.
Another app that will hold their interest would be one like Bingo Road Trip. There are various versions of the same sort of game available, which involves trying to find all the different objects on your bingo card, with the winner being the person who manages to find them first.
Revealing game for everyone to play
If you want another idea for a family game to play on your road trip you could find out how much you really know about each other with a game of fact or fib.
To play the game you will take it in turns to state three “facts” to the other occupants of the car, such as I haven’t eaten any sweets for a week, or I came top of the class in my latest spelling test at school.
One of the three facts will be a fib that you have made up, and the object of the game is for the rest of the players to try and spot which one it is.
This is a game that normally manages to produces some laughs and even a few gasps when you discover something you didn’t know about one of your own family.
With such a diverse range of car games to play, the question might be whether your road trip is long enough to get through them all.