Favorite road trip games

[chays]

I'll be embarking on a 2-week jaunt in October, a loop from Vegas to Zion, Bryce Canyon, down to Flagstaff, and back to Vegas.  While I love a long drive, my wife and 3 kids (ages 11, 9, and 7) are less inclined.

We have several "go-to" games we play when driving.
-The "license plate" game, where we try to find as many different states/provinces/estados as possible (last trip we saw a Guatemala plate).
-The "ABC" game:  Each person has to find the letters of the alphabet, consecutively, on the static signs that we pass (no vehicle letters/license plates).  Once a sign has been used for a letter, it is no longer able to be used.

What other road trip games are there?

[corco]

Slugbug!

[1995hoo]

We used to play the game where one person has to name a place in the world and the next person has to name a place whose name starts with the last letter of the preceding one (example: if I said Brunei, my brother might say Indianapolis–in his case after asking me to spell "Brunei").

[chays]

Slugbug!

Haha, I forgot that one.  We call it Punch Bug...and can only last for so long until it gets out of hand.
We play one punch for a Beetle, three for a convertible Beetle, and 5 for a VW Bus. 

[chays]

We used to play the game where one person has to name a place in the world and the next person has to name a place whose name starts with the last letter of the preceding one (example: if I said Brunei, my brother might say Indianapolis–in his case after asking me to spell "Brunei").

Way back in the '80s we had a computer program that was basically this game.  It's amazing how many places begin and end with the letter "A".

[Max Rockatansky]

Punch Buggy...or at least it was fun back in my day as a kid when they were a lot more common. 

[pumpkineater2]

I remember sometimes playing "I spy" with my sister in the car.

[kurumi]

Take turns thinking of an animal, food item, place name, dog's name, etc. starting with A, B, C, ...

What's fun is when the kids are stumped, but try their best to justify a nonsense answer ("X-ray chips!")

[chays]

Take turns thinking of an animal, food item, place name, dog's name, etc. starting with A, B, C, ...

What's fun is when the kids are stumped, but try their best to justify a nonsense answer ("X-ray chips!")

Nice, I like it!

[kphoger]

1.  Destination/Mode of transportation/Cargo.  All three words have to start with the same letter.  Example:  "I'm headed to Albuquerque in an airplane with a load of afghans."  Next person:  "I'm going to Beirut in a Buick hauling a load of bouncy balls."  Play until Z.

2.  Spot something starting with the next letter.  Arch, balloon, Chrysler, door, exit, fox.  Play until Z.  The Sears cargo box called "X-Cargo" is a lifesaver.

3.  Word association.  String, silly, goofy, Disney, Florida, oranges, juice, sugar, blood.  Play until you get tired of it.

I grew up playing the license plate game with a pad and paper.  I was good enough to identify plates even if they were on oncoming vehicles on the other side of the Interstate.  My best finds have been Germany in Colorado, Arizona in France, Quebec in Coahuila, and Guam in D.C.

[empirestate]

Slugbug!

Haha, I forgot that one.  We call it Punch Bug...and can only last for so long until it gets out of hand.
We play one punch for a Beetle, three for a convertible Beetle, and 5 for a VW Bus.

And none for a New Beetle, right? At least when they first came out, they were far too common to make the game anything less than a bloodbath.


iPhone

[DandyDan]

When I was a kid, I had this one book which had a version of the license plate game where you got points based on the state you were in when you spotted the license plate.  It was higher the farther away the state was.  I think it was always 1 point if the plate you spotted was a neighboring state, so if we were in Wisconsin (which happened a lot when we went between Minnesota and Illinois), we got 1 point each time we saw a Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, or Michigan plate, but there would be a lot more if it was a California plate.  I'm not sure how Canadian provinces were scored, but I think there was points in that, too.  I just wish I knew what happened to that book.

[kphoger]

When I was a kid, I had this one book which had a version of the license plate game where you got points based on the state you were in when you spotted the license plate.  It was higher the farther away the state was.  I think it was always 1 point if the plate you spotted was a neighboring state, so if we were in Wisconsin (which happened a lot when we went between Minnesota and Illinois), we got 1 point each time we saw a Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, or Michigan plate, but there would be a lot more if it was a California plate.  I'm not sure how Canadian provinces were scored, but I think there was points in that, too.  I just wish I knew what happened to that book.

I'm now going to invent my own game based on this idea and have my son play it when we travel.  Thank you.

[1995hoo]

....

I grew up playing the license plate game with a pad and paper.  I was good enough to identify plates even if they were on oncoming vehicles on the other side of the Interstate.  My best finds have been Germany in Colorado, Arizona in France, Quebec in Coahuila, and Guam in D.C.

We used paper to list me all too; on multiple-day trips we did not start over, either. I think the ones we saw that we saw least frequently were a Northwest Territories plate in the car park at Western Brook Pond in Newfoundland and a Yukon plate at the ferry terminal in Port-aux-Basques a couple of days later. I've only seen one other Yukon plate and that was in Juneau some 23 years later.

Regarding Guam plates, it's odd, this calendar year I've seen three different vehicles with Guam plates, all here in Fairfax County.

[US 81]

When my kids were those ages, we would buy a new "Mad Libs" book for a road trip. We made it a point to ask only one person at a time for each blank: Dad, think of a noun; Mom, name an adjective; Sister, choose a color. This rotation kept everyone involved instead of letting a more verbose child dominate. After playing a few of these, fairly neutral words like "mailbox" or "toothpaste" become hilariously funny.

We also kept a deck of cards in the car all the time that had different silly conversation starters on each card: If you were a vegetable, which one would you be and why? Which US president does your dog look most like?  What sound would a flower make?  I do not remember any specific brand name, I think we found these at a bookstore, but this sort of thing has still got to be out there and would hopefully be easy to find.

I also got the kids laminated maps and tried to play "where are we on the map?" and "what road would we take to go to (city)?" but neither child seemed to think this was fun.  (I loved it when I was a kid.)

[1995hoo]

I forgot all about Mad Libs. We used to write down the words on a sheet of paper so we could reuse the booklet later. For some reason ours always got filled with words like "shit" or "fart" or whatever.

[bandit957]

I remember when my brother and I sat in the back seat of the car and kept punching each other. Then my dad got real mad and reached back and marked out a line down the middle of the back seat that we weren't allowed to cross "or you're gonna be punished."

Seems like there was one time someone got bored and tried blowing a huge bubble with bubble gum. I can't remember who or when. That might have been on a college trip.

I also remember we went on a trip when I was 3, and my brother warned of the Hair Snatcher, a fictional monster who would reach into the car and rip people's hair off if they had the car windows rolled down. My mom got real mad at my brother for telling this story.

[bandit957]

We also kept a deck of cards in the car all the time that had different silly conversation starters on each card: If you were a vegetable, which one would you be and why? Which US president does your dog look most like?  What sound would a flower make?  I do not remember any specific brand name, I think we found these at a bookstore, but this sort of thing has still got to be out there and would hopefully be easy to find.

I come up with questions like this all the time on trips. One of my perennial favorites is: If you had to have a body part amputated, who would you mail it to?

[DandyDan]

Regarding Guam plates, it's odd, this calendar year I've seen three different vehicles with Guam plates, all here in Fairfax County.

Living less than 10 miles away from Offutt AFB, I see Guam plates here all the time.  Alaska and Hawaii, too.  I can't say if it's the same vehicles over and over again, but it doesn't seem that way.

[GenExpwy]

One day in the late 1970s my brother and I started thinking about who should sing various popular songs (of the time). The ones I still remember were:
The Marquis de Sade singing Turn The Beat Around
Fred Flintstone singing I Am A Rock
Albert Einstein singing If I Could Save Time In A Bottle

Mother, who was driving, made us stop because we were all laughing so hard.

[empirestate]

My dad and I have been known to make up puns while driving by places on the NYS Thruway. Examples include:
—A college in Montgomery County for people who like each other (Fonda U.)
—Two on a mattress (Sharon Springs)
—The absence of motivation (Lackawanna)

[bandit957]

Once when I was about 8, we went on a trip to Chicago. On the way home, my brother and I kept singing parodies of the Popeye theme and the Arby's commercial. We were laughing so hard it hurt.

[triplemultiplex]

"My Cows".

When you see a group of cows from the highway, you declare "My cows!" and that's like a point or something.  It's a game of being the first to spot them.  The fun part is when there are long stretches without cows and everyone starts to forget about the game and some other conversation starts.  Then you call back the game by interjecting a "My Cows" into that conversation.  It can be really funny.

"Oh yeah that movie was really great.  You know what else is great?  Those are my cows!"

[empirestate]

"My Cows".

When you see a group of cows from the highway, you declare "My cows!" and that's like a point or something.  It's a game of being the first to spot them.  The fun part is when there are long stretches without cows and everyone starts to forget about the game and some other conversation starts.  Then you call back the game by interjecting a "My Cows" into that conversation.  It can be really funny.

"Oh yeah that movie was really great.  You know what else is great?  Those are my cows!"

Heck, I played that one as an adult. You were supposed to count all the cows as you passed them and keep a running tally, although with a large herd it usually just meant counting as fast as you could until they were out of sight. Our version wasn't about first though; you just called out any cows that passed on your side of the car. (This gave the driver an advantage: I may or may not have altered my route to ensure that a known cow pasture passed on my side of the car.)

There were other rules, as well: if you passed a church steeple on your side, you doubled your cow tally. But if you passed a cemetery, you lost all your cows. (But you're under no obligation to call out a cemetery if your opponent doesn't notice it.) This created drama since the two are often located together–and it mattered what order you passed them in. We also had some extra modifications: seeing an old man on a porch would give you back your most recently-lost cows, provided you hadn't yet started to accumulate more. And a horse-and-buggy meant something, too (we were usually playing this in south-central PA)–double your cows back, maybe? I can't remember.

[vtk]

When I was a kid and my family took a lot of road trips, my brothers and I didn't get along sufficiently well for group activities to work. We did have travel versions of several popular board games, so one on one matches of Connect 4 or Guess Who would usually work. We also had journals to write or draw in, and a travel Spirograph... And as we got older, it became more common to just have everyone listening to their own music with headphones.

Now, when I'm out with friends around Columbus, sometimes someone will call out three letters from a license plate of another car, and everyone takes turns inventing three word phrases that the letters might be short for. For example, FTV might be "Four-Tire Vehicle". It usually turns blue pretty quickly. And the way the plates are issued, certain letter combinations are clustered in certain cities like Columbus. One game we had DYL "Do Your Laundry", followed by DYS which I won't expand here because it was off-color, and then DYK which took it a couple steps even more wrong.