The miles can feel really long for the little people in the back seat. And when that happens the trip gets so much longer for everybody. Every parent has experienced the “I am bored”, “Are we there yet” emergency and tried to frantically remember the childhood games they used to play to pass the time.
Here is the good news: we collected: the best road trip games for kids and they need nothing but a window, a few players, and maybe a pencil and a book. No tablets, no batteries, no “you can’t watch that video for the seventh time in a row” discussions..
Here are our ten favorites — most of them free and equipment-free — plus a couple of ready-made versions for when you’d rather not invent the rules yourself. They are tried and found useful through many hours of travel with young kids, nieces, nephews, godchildren and great-nephews.
- I Spy
The all-time classic. One player picks something they can see and gives a clue — “I spy something red…” — and everyone takes turns guessing. Whoever guesses right goes next. It works from about age 4 all the way up.
The only catch every parent knows: kids (and, frankly, adults) run out of ideas around mile twenty. That’s exactly what Zippet’s I Spy on the Road! is for — 225 ready-made clues for every scenery – from highway to countryside, towns, water, and sky – and sorted into easy, medium, and hard, so a four-year-old and a grandparent can both play the same round. It’s the classic game, played out the window, with the book as backup. **→ [AMAZON-ISPY]**
- The License Plate Game
Spot license plates from as many different states as you can and keep a running list. It rewards a sharp eye, suits older kids especially, and sneaks in a geography lesson without anyone noticing. See how many you can collect before the destination.
- The Alphabet Game
Race through the alphabet, A to Z, by finding each letter in order on signs, billboards, and plates. Great practice for new readers, and genuinely competitive for adults stuck on Q. First one to Z wins.
There are variations and extra rules you can introduce, like the letter needs to be the first letter of the word to count, or the letter only count when they are on an exit sign/shop sign. Just like in golf, you can introduce handicaps, every letter counts for the new readers, but the older kids and adults have to find capital letters, or letters printed in a certain color or as part of shop names.
Try it out, be creative, come up with your own rules and see what works for your family.
- Roadspotter
That’s one I invented for my 4 year old when traveling to a destination that was much further away than anticipated (a typical “are we there yet?” and “but you said it would be a short trip” situation with high melt-down potential). Here it goes:
Everyone watches the window and calls out things they see. Common stuff — a white car, a gas station — is worth a little. Rare stuff — a hot air balloon, a car exactly like yours — is worth a lot. Most points when you arrive or most point after a set time wins.
The original version tended to end with the same argument: “But you said a cow was worth 50 points before!” (I did not) or “an orange car is at least a million-billion points”.
Road Spotter settles this — every item is pre-scored from 1 point up to a 50-point jackpot, with a spotting list organized by points and built-in scorecards for up to six players. Simple enough for a five-year-old, sneaky-competitive for adults.
→ [AMAZON-ROADSPOTTER]
- The Story Chain
This is one game that relies on imagination and creativity: one person starts a story with a single sentence. The next person adds the next sentence. Around the car it goes, and it ends up exactly as ridiculous as you’d hope. No equipment, no winners, all ages — just a story that nobody planned and no single person could ever make up.
- Would You Rather
Take turns asking silly “would you rather” questions. “Would you rather have spaghetti for hair or fingers made of crayons? Pure conversation, zero props, and it keeps toddlers and teenagers equally entertained.
- The Quiet Game
Whoever stays quiet the longest wins. Is it a little bit of a parenting trick? Yes. Is it also genuinely fun for a kid determined to prove they can out-silence everyone? Also yes, use sparingly as it can get old quickly when overdone. And it might not work for every kind. My little chatterbox once made it barely past 90 seconds – his personal record that he kept bragging about for weeks – but felt entirely too short for me.
- Counting Cows
Each side of the car counts the animals on their side — cows, horses, sheep. Here’s the twist that makes it: if your side passes a pond (or a white horse, your choice), your count resets to zero. Loud, lucky, and full of dramatic reversals.
Does it have to be animals? No, billboards, high-rise buildings, bridges – depending on where you are almost anything can be counted. Just make sure there aren’t too few (booooring) or too many (counting tree while driving through a forest …).
- Color Count
Pick a color, then count how many cars of that color you spot in five minutes. It’s the perfect first road trip game for toddlers and preschoolers who aren’t quite ready for clues yet — all they need to know is their colors.
- Silly A to Z
This is another one I came up with for the boy who wouldn’t be quiet and that provided hours of fun during car rides and even hikes (high “are we there yet, I am sooo tiered” risk) or other situations we had to wait (e.g. dentist with inadequate toy selection).
Here is how you play: come up with a category, like “disgusting food” and then make up answers consisting of two words that start with the same letter. Start with A and take turns to go through the alphabet: “appalling anchovies”, “blobbery butter”, “moldy macaroni” – it’s silly but silly is good and entertaining and distracts the little mind that now doesn’t focus on the long way to the car or the long wait at the dentist.
The challenge is to come up with categories, that’s why we created “Zippet’s Silly A to Z” books. Three volumes of fun, creative categories, room to keep track of your answers, a wordbank for those tricky letters like Q and Z and pages to doodle and add your own ideas – and, of course, Zip our loveable roadrunner to walk (or run) you through.
→ [AMAZON-Silly A to Z, Vol 1 and 2]
- The Navigator
Hand an older kid a paper map or a printed route and put them in charge of tracking your progress and announcing the next town. Real responsibility, real pride, and a surprisingly effective cure for “are we there yet?”
Making It Screen-Free for Real
A few things that help these games actually stick on a long drive:
- Rotate often. Five minutes of any game beats thirty minutes of one. Keep a few in your back pocket and switch before anyone gets bored.
- Let the youngest win sometimes. Bend the rules if you have to. The point is the laughing, not the scoring.
- Pack a paper backup. A coloring pack or activity book carries the quiet stretches when nobody wants to talk. Our [BLOG-COLORING] free printable roadrunner coloring pages are made exactly for this — print them before you leave.
You don’t need much to make a road trip fun — just a window, a little imagination, and a few games. The next time the back seat starts to fidget, you’ll have eleven ways to answer “are we there yet?”
Zippet and his Flock makes screen-free games and activity books for families on the move, published by Satin Press. Find them all at zippetbook.com.*
