Road Trip Games to Have Fun on Long Journeys

Many families and groups of friends enjoy fun road trips each and every year, and it’s always exciting to load up the car and set off on an adventure. However, with all of those hours of driving, it’s easy to get bored, and one of the best ways to stay entertained is with fun road trip games. In this guide, we’ll look at a great range of road trip games for you to play.

Contents:

• Road Trip Games for Couples 
• Fun Games to Play in the Car
• Car Games for Road Trips for Kids
• Best Road Trip Games for Families
• Road Trip Games for Adults

Road Trip Games for Couples

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Let’s start off with some fun trip games for couples to try out. If you’re planning a road trip with someone special, here are some interesting games to play along the way.

Never Have I Ever

If you want a fun road trip game that will help you find out a little more about your partner, Never Have I Ever is a great game to play.

With this game, players take turns saying the phrase “Never Have I Ever…” and then filling out the sentence with something that they may or may not have done. The other person then has to guess if the player is telling the truth.

As the games go on, the statements can become more personal and revealing, giving both partners a chance to discover all sorts of interesting facts about one another.

Bingo

If you’re looking for something a little more laid-back for your next road trip game, give bingo a try.

This game works just like regular bingo, in which you have to pick a series of numbers and wait for them to be called out. The big difference with road trip Bingo is that you need to pick a list of items you expect to see along the way.

You can pick things like certain brands or colors of cars, different animals, billboards, and so on. You and your partner can each make a list of 10 items, for example, and then tick them off as you go along and see who gets the most or who fills their list first.

10 Questions

This is another fun road trip game you can play with only two players, and it’s a useful one for sparking some discussions and small talk between you and your partner over the course of your trip.

10 Questions involves one player thinking of something. It could be a film, an animal, a celebrity, or a piece of food, for example. The other person then gets to ask ten “yes or no” questions in order to try and figure out what the other person is thinking of.

This game becomes a lot of fun if you think of creative and interesting ideas to try and catch the other person out.

Atlas

Here’s another fun game to play that only needs two players and doesn’t require any special equipment or knowledge. Plus, there are lots of ways to play around with the formula.

In Atlas, one player has to say the name of either a country or city from around the world. The next player then has to name a city/country that starts with the final letter of the previous answer. For example, if the first person says France, the next player needs to think of a country beginning with E, like Egypt.

You can play around with this concept in different ways and use various themes instead of countries or cities, like song names or movie titles.

Fun Games to Play in the Car

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Next, let’s take a look at a few more games to play in the car that can appeal to people of different ages and dispositions.

I Spy

I Spy is one of the most classic road trip games of all time, played and enjoyed by people all over the globe and famed for its simplicity.

With I Spy, all you have to do is say “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with…” and then say the first letter of something you see. It could be something outside the car, like a tree or dog, or something inside the vehicle. The other players then have to guess.

I Spy is super simple and always fun. Plus, it works with players of all ages, so it’s a good game to choose with family or friends.

The Picnic Game

The Picnic Game is another fun game to play on family road trips, and it’s best enjoyed with a few players to test memory and creativity.

In this game, one player starts off by saying “I went on a picnic and took…” and then says an item that starts with the first letter of the alphabet. The next player repeats the previous phrase and adds something that starts with the second letter of the alphabet. And this continues until someone forgets the sequence.

Would You Rather?

Here’s another good game that you can play with both kids and adults and modify to suit your own tastes and personalities.

Would You Rather? involves one person saying a phrase like “Would you rather be able to fly or turn invisible?” or “Would you rather eat a spider or a worm?” and then the other players have to answer the question and argue their point.

This is a really fun game for generating debate and discussion among your road trip crew, and you can make the questions more mature or kid-friendly, depending on who you’re traveling with.

Fortunately/Unfortunately

Fortunately/Unfortunately is a really clever and interesting game that also allows everyone in the car to participate and get creative.

Like other road trip games, this one begins with one person saying a sentence like “I went to the beach.” The next player has to say a phrase starting with the word “Unfortunately”, like “Unfortunately, it was raining.” And then the next player adds a “Fortunately” sentence, like “Fortunately, I had an umbrella.”

Players take turns adding phrases with “Unfortunately” and “Fortunately” to create a whole story.

Car Games for Road Trips with Kids

If you’re planning a road trip with kids, you’ll need to think of some fun and simple games that your little ones can play to keep them from getting bored along the way. Here are a few examples.

License Plate Game

Kids always enjoy the license plate game, as it’s a little like a treasure hunt and lets them watch outside their windows as the cars drive by.

For this game, the objective is to spot cars with different license plates from various states across the US. Each player can call out a license plate as they see it and add it to their list, like a game of bingo. Whoever spots the most by the end of the journey wins.

Groceries

Groceries is a similar game to many of the others on this list, as it involves players trying to guess something that someone else is thinking of, but it’s more tailored towards kids.

For this game, one player thinks of something you can buy at the grocery store, like eggs or ice cream. The other players have to ask questions like “Is it sweet?” or “Is it in the dairy aisle?” to figure out what the item is.

Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt is another super game to play when you’re on a road trip with kids, as it can help to keep them quiet and entertained while you focus on driving.

For this game, you’ll need to do a bit of preparation and create some scavenger hunt cards or lists before you set off, with a list of items that the kids need to look out for, like a certain type of car, a mountain, a campsite, and a train. Then, the kids can tick off each item as they see it along the way.

Triple Threat

Triple Threat is a game that lets the whole family get creative and gives your kids a chance to test their storytelling skills and put their imaginations to work.

To start this game, one of the adults has to pick three nouns, like “boat”, “giraffe”, and “beach”. The kids then have to come up with a fun story that includes all three of those items, and you can grade the stories and award points for the funniest or most creative one.

Read also Best Family Travel Tips: Vacations with Kids Can Be Easy! 

Best Road Trip Games for Families

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Last but not least, let’s take a look at a few classic family road trip games that moms, dads, and kids of all ages can enjoy playing together.

Word Association

Word Association is a really simple game and it’s also a good one for testing and improving your child’s vocabulary, so it’s fun to play when you’re traveling with kids.

In this game, one player says a word, like “Rainbow”, and the next player has to quickly (within a few seconds) say a word that comes into their mind which is linked to the previous one, like “Green”. The next player continues, picking a word associated with the previous one, like “Grass”, and the game goes on. Players are eliminated if they take too long or repeat a previous word.

Stories

Here’s another fun game that gives your kids a chance to be creative, as it involves the whole family trying to come up with their own story together.

The game is quite simple. One person begins with a sentence, like “It was a snowy day” and then the next person adds something like “Bob decided to build a snowman.” The game then goes on with more and more sentences, and it’s really fun when kids add their own unusual ideas to the mixture like “The snowman came to life!” or “Bob turned into a snowman.”

Animal Name Game

In the Animal Name Game, kids and grown-ups get to test their knowledge of the animal kingdom.

The game begins with a player saying the name of an animal that starts with the same letter as their name, like “Mike the monkey” or “Gary the giraffe”. The other players then add their own names and animals to the mix and have to repeat the previous ones from the list.

This can continue with other names of relatives and friends that you know, and it keeps going until someone makes a mistake or forgets the list.

How Long is the Tunnel?

This game isn’t ideal for every road trip, but it’s great if you’re driving on a route that has lots of tunnels along the way.

The aim of the game is simple: each player has to try and guess how long a tunnel will be. Before you get to the tunnel, each player has to say a number, based on how long they think the tunnel is, and then start counting up to that number once the car enters the tunnel. When you get to the end of the tunnel, you see which player was closest, based on how high you counted.

Road Trip Games for Adults

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There are plenty of great car games for kids, but what about if you’re planning a trip with your adult friends? Here are some road trip games for grown-ups to enjoy.

While You Were Sleeping

It’s pretty common for people to fall asleep during road trips, as the long hours roll by. Well, this fun game gives you something to do while one of your group is sleeping.

To play While You Were Sleeping, you have to wait for someone to fall asleep. While they’re sleeping, the other people create a story about something that happened while the person was asleep. Then, when the person wakes up, you have to tell them the story in the most convincing way possible to get them to believe it.

The Singing Game

The Singing Game is a great road trip game to play if you’re in a car with a group of people who really love music.

To play this game, one person starts singing part of a song. They then stop at a certain point, and the next player has to continue the lyric into a different song. For example, the first person might sing Taylor Swift’s “We are never, ever, ever…” and the next person could switch to “Gonna give you up” from Rick Astley.

The Movie Game

Here’s a good game for a car full of movie buffs and cinema lovers, as it tests everyone’s knowledge of films and actors.

For this game, one person says the name of an actor, like Samuel L. Jackson. The next person has to name a film the actor was in, like Pulp Fiction, and the next person then says another actor from that film, like Uma Thurman, and the game goes on. Players get eliminated if they make a mistake or repeat the same film or actor.

The Alphabet Game

The alphabet game is another fun game to play with a car full of grown-ups.

For this game, you have to name things in alphabetical order. To start off the game, the group has to decide on a category, like items of food or animals. Then, each player takes it, in turn, to name something from that category for each letter of the alphabet, starting at A and going through to Z.

Make Your Road Trip One to Remember with Fun Road Trip Games

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As you can see, there are plenty of great road trip games to play the next time you and your family or friends hit the road. Be sure to learn the rules of a few different games so you have some options on your next trip, and share this article around with other families to help them have happier and more enjoyable road trip experiences, as well.

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