Creative Travel Games for Kids

"Are we there yet?" 

These games are meant to get those creative juices flowing and mixing on those long summer drives to "VACATION." These involve a bit more brainpower than just finding something and often require a bit of memory as well. Here's a list of what works on roadtrips for Trekaroo families:

• Get Goofy and Laugh (Ages 3+)
• What's in the Clouds (Ages 3 to 6)
• Scattergories on the Go (Ages 4+)
• Telephone Storytelling (Ages 4+)
• The Picnic Game (Ages 4+)
• The Professor's Cat (Ages 5+)
• Around the World (Ages 6+)
• License Plate Lingo (Ages 7+)
• Building Words (Ages 9+)
• Buzz (Ages 9+)

For more games, check out Trekaroo’s Activities and Games Guide for Traveling with Kids. You'll find games like "Classic Find and Seek Travel Games for Kids", "Getting to Know You Travel Games" and "Guessing Games for the Road." 

1.    Get Goofy and Laugh (Ages 3+)

When you get to that point in a journey where you just want to be there and can't stand being in the car anymore.  Get goofy and get the giggles going.  Kids love watching their parents get goofy.  Stretch their imagination and get those problem solving skills going.  Pose silly questions like:

"How would a cow eat if his mouth was on his back?

"How would a fish swim if he had no tail?"

"What would happen if water flowed upwards instead of downwards?"

"What would it be like if babies were born walking and talking?"

"What would it be like if people walked upside down all the time?"

2.   What's in the Clouds (Ages 3 to 6)

Look out the windows and ask your little ones what they see in the clouds. A shark? Mr. Potato Head? A pony? See if you can find each other's clouds and see the same thing. If you tend to get carsick, just skip this one.

3.    Scattergories on the Go (Ages 4+)

This game is great for helping children with categorization and recall. Pick a category like superheroes.  Each person takes turns to think of a new item that fits in that category like Superman, Batman...  Only allow 4-5 seconds for each person to name something.  If you can't think of something in the alloted timeframe, you're out. The last person standing wins and gets to pick the next category. 

Categories that work well with young children:

 - Fruits

 - Colors

 - Songs

 - Animals

For older children:

 - Brands of cars

 - Types of sports

 - Famous people

 - Occupations

 - Plants

Adaptations: If you like to sing, choose a word and have each player think of songs with the word in it. For example, if the word is "Eye", folks often break-out in "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" or "My Brown Eyed Girl". The words love, bye, hello are also fun. You can also do categories like songs about animals or cars.

4.   Telephone Story Telling (Ages 4+)

Similar to the game of telephone, this game takes everyone's creativity and weaves together a tale to remember. This is great for kids who likes stories and imaginary play. Each person gets a turn to say one sentence and watch the story unfold through the lines that each passenger in the car adds to the story. This is a great way for children to learn how stories have a beginning, middle and end. Children also learn literary skills like building suspense and humor, as well as sentence construction.  The stories that unfold are often silly, and full of funny twists and turns.  You'll feel like you want to start transcribing these stories into a family travel journal.

Adaptation: To include younger siblings, when it comes to their turn, have them answer a question to help continue the story.  For example. If the last sentence was.  "Then the little boy crossed the bridge riding his bicycle."  You can ask the little one "How fast was he boy riding?"  When you get a reply like - "very fast!"  You can help make it into a sentence.  "He rode as fast as he could but suddenly...."

For older children, allow them to craft a few sentences at a time and ask them to describe the details.

5.   The Picnic Game (Ages 4+)

This is all about who has the best memory. Player 1 starts off with "I went on a picnic and I brought ... " and adds in something that starts with the letter A, like avocados (everyone uses apples!). Player 2 repeats the "I went on a picnic..." phrase and adds in the A item and adds in one that starts with a B. Player 3 goes on a picnic and brings item A, item B and adds in item C to bring too. It's always fun to end the game by bringing a zebra to the picnic.

Adaptation: You can change the theme of the trip to grandma's house, the grocery store or outerspace. For older kids, start with Z and go through the alphabet backwards. This version makes my brain hurt.

6.    The Professor's Cat (Ages 5+)

Let's work on our adjectives. Pick a letter like "S" and and describe the professor's cat with a word that starts with the letter S. "The professor's cat is silly." The next person has to remember the adjective from the previous person and add in their adjective that starts with S like smelly. You keep going until someone can't think of anymore adjectives to give the Professor's cat.

7.    Around the World (Ages 6+)

We know you like to travel, so let's go around the world and think about all the places that you are going to, have gone to, or want to go to. Player 1 names a country in the world like United States. Player 2 then has to name a country that states with the last letter of the previous player's states which would be "S". They choose Scandinavia which ends in A, so player 3 might say Angola, Australia. You can choose countries, cities, states, bodies of water, or landmarks.

8.   License Plate Lingo (Ages 7+)

ABC... "already been chewed." In this generation of texting kings and queens, your tweens and teens will dominate. Find some letters on a license plate like EML and have everyone share a different acronym meaning. "Emergency Martian Landing" or "Elephants making Lasgna." When all possibilities have been exhausted, move on to another set of letters. 

9.  Building Words (Ages 9+)

This is great for building the future Scrabble geniuses of the world. The object of the game is build words together. The first person starts with a letter like B. The next person thinks of a word "base" and says the letter A. The 3rd person says an S. If the next person says "E", then you've completed a word and everyone wins. You always have to have a word in mind before saying a letter. Someone can always challenge the previous person. If they don't have a word in mind, then they're disqualified.

For older kids, you can make it more challenging by having the person who completes a word be "out." It makes everyone either think of longer words to spell and transition too. The last person standing is the winner. In this version, you can't be disqualified for spelling a two or three letter word.

10.  Buzz (Ages 9+)

Great for building division skills. The goal is to count to 100, but there's a hitch. Every time you get to a number that's divisible by 8 (8, 16, 24) or has the number 8 (8, 18, 28) in it, you have to say the word "Buzz" instead of the number. Try it with other numbers too. If you've got a division newbie, start off with the number 5.

For more games, check out Trekaroo’s Activities and Games Guide for Traveling with Kids.

Related articles:

• Best Travel Trays for Kids
• Toys on the Fly
• Preparing Kids to Travel

Visit Trekaroo’s Travel Store for more of our favorite travel gear, toys, and books for babies to teens!