Road Trip Games to Play with Kids
Taking vacations together as a family can certainly make for rewarding and memorable experiences for all participating family members. However, depending upon the age of children in the family, the actual process of getting to your vacation destination can take its toll. If you have an excursion planned that will entail a lengthy road trip, and you will be traveling with younger children, there is no reason that the drive has to equal a time of drudgery or boredom (or frustration on your part, after you've explained for the twelfth time that you are nowhere close to "there yet").
Luckily, there a plenty of games and activities you can turn to to render your family's time in the vehicle much more enjoyable. In fact, many families consider their vacation to have begun the very moment that items for the trip are packed and the vehicle pulls out of the driveway. By being prepared with various roadway games, you can help incorporate this stretch of time seamlessly into the overall vacation feeling. If you have a car DVD player installed in your vehicle, you might still want to prepare with a number of enriching, fun games in mind, leaving the DVD player for a certain length of time into the trip.
Playing I Spy
Fortunately, a number of popular and simple road trip games can involve even very young members of the family. If your family includes children ranging from infants to teenagers or preteens, you may have a challenge on your hands when it comes to finding games that will keep all family member satisfied. However, when you suggest a game such as "I Spy," you can count on all children of varying ages being able to participate. A classic game that many adults played in childhood, I Spy requires participants to fix their sight on a certain object (one that will not be instantly passed) and to offer clues as to what the particular object is. While this game can be plenty of fun, and get the creative juices of one and all revved up, it also has certain inherent limitations. Spied objects will frequently be limited to the things seen in the vehicle itself, things may seem too easily guessed.
Playing a game such as "20 Questions" effectively solves the matter of picking an object that family members will be able to see and interpret clues based upon. When a child participates in the game 20 Question, he or she merely thinks of a person, place, or thing, and then answers questions about it. Variations of this particular game go by various names and are widely known of and enjoyed. This is another game that can involve children from a fairly broad spectrum of ages. If you want to make the game more challenging for older children, you can always stipulate that chosen items have to fall within a certain category.
Location Specific Games
Of the many road trip games to play with kids, one of the simplest yet most challenging to parents can involve conveying information. Making the scenery you pass en route to a final destination spot into an ongoing geography lesson might not initially sound like a great deal of fun to you or to your children. However, even fairly young children can easily become excited as they learn interesting facts about the area around them. What can be helpful is to plan your trip in advance, and as accurately as possible, in such a way that allows for short stops to interesting historical sights and landmarks.