Games to play on long car and airplane trips:

License Plate Alphabet: Find your way in order from A to Z using license plates and road signs.

I Spy: Usually, you identify your item by its colour, but you can also use its first letter or some other feature.

Pack a Suitcase: Each person in the game must say, “I’m going on a trip and in my suitcase, I will bring…” They must identify an item starting with the next letter in the alphabet.  For younger kids, that is all, but for older ones, they must repeat all items that were “packed” before their turn. If you miss one, you’re out.

Disgusting Lunch: You must describe the ickiest, guckiest, most disgusting items possible to include in serving a lunch. Each person in the game must do a different part, so one person does the drink, one the main food, one the side dish, and dessert and so on.  You could have eyeball milkshakes with frog leg garnish or pond ooze gravy on chicken…etc. There is no winner; it is just a time-passing activity. (This one is not a great choice for airplanes.)

Storytelling: You begin a story “Once upon a time” and each person in turn contributes another sentence. Hilarious stories result!

In My Trunk: You fill your imaginary trunk with items. Each person must put in an item that begins with the last letter of the previous item.  So if someone says they are putting a surfboard in the trunk, the next person’s item must begin with the letter D.  You can play as long as you like.  To add a twist – consider making the items fit a category. Each word must fit the category. If animals are chosen, you put a kangaroo in the trunk, the next person must choose an animal beginning with O.

Travel Bingo: You need to assemble cards ahead of time, but the idea is to make a 25 square grid (5 rows across and 5 columns down) and fill each square with a travel picture. For car rides, it might be a cow, a truck, a train, gull, fence post, barn, and so on.  For airplane rides, try to find people with a certain hair colour, suitcases, baby strollers, a fork, napkin, and so on. If someone gets a line they can be considered a winner.  The cards need to be different from each other so not everyone wins at once.

Twenty Questions: The person who is “it” thinks of something and answers questions about it as others try to guess. The item can be part of a theme or totally random. The questions can be anything at all, but the answer must be yes or no. The person who guesses correctly becomes the next “it”. Can you eat it, is it in the house, is it more than one colour…all are questions that would work well.

Paper Games: Tic-tac-toe, SOS, connect the dots, word search, etc.