Travel Games for Family
Traveling with Kids
If you have kids, you know how daunting taking long trips can be. Where we live now is 5 hours from my husband’s family and 16 hours away from mine. So, needless to say, it is not just a short jaunt to visit families. These trips can be our undoing. We could tranqualize them. That thought has crossed our minds (LOL). Over the years we have created a few games that the kids love to play as we go down the road. Some of these might resemble others that are out there. So forgive us of we are telling about something that has been there for years. It was a new discovery for us.
The Animal Game
The kids beg to play this game. We agree on who will start it. We’ve decided that my husband never starts it since according to the rules, he would end up always leading it, so we usually start with the youngest. She picks a letter of the alphabet. Once she announces the chosen letter, she declares an animal that starts with that letter. Then we go to the next person, and so forth. We keep going around and around until there is only one person left.
- Choose a letter
- Take turns naming an animal
- Must be a real animal
- Regional names like Asian elephant can only be used one time since you could go a little overboard and the game would never end.
- All in agreement if extinct animals are allowed.
- No writing down a list of animals — unless you can hide it in a book or a map. (Shhhhh!)
After we began this game, the kids watch more of the animal planet and read more books on them. They are determined to learn more animals so they can win the game.
Food Game
This one is very similar to the animal game above. Here are the rules:
- Pick a letter
- Name only real food items
- Only items you can get at a grocery store.
- Make it more challenging — only raw foods, domestic ones, or any other limitations you can think of.
The winner gets to have their choice of dessert that night.
The Sign Game
This game gets everyone involved. Though I do suggest that the driver gets a handicap for the safety of all those involved.
- Look at the signs around you on billboards, buildings, cars, trucks, road signs.
- Starting with “A” find words that begin with that letter.
- Once that word from that sign is used by the first person to blurt it out, it cannot be used again. The other souls in the car need to look elsewhere.
- Each person continues down the alphabet path on their own. so Johnny could be on “G” and Jane on “M”. Whoever reaches “Z” first and finds a word with that letter, wins it all.
Believe it or not, we do find words with “Q”, “X”, and “Z”. We even finish the alphabet sometimes!
Refurbished Song Game
Here is one that doesn’t involve the alphabet!
Pick a song — any song. Begin singing this song but start changing the words. Decide ahead of time if you are going to feature animals, food, places, or people in it. You’ll be laughing to hard before the first line is done.
