No matter how exciting the destination is, it can feel impossible to keep your whole family’s spirits up for the duration of the journey getting there. It’s good to have a few family car games to keep up your sleeve, to placate your kids when you need it most, and to prevent them from throwing punches.
Plus, there’s nothing like a bit of healthy competition among family members!
Here we share a few of the best games to play in the car with kids – some you may even remember from your own childhood!
The Alphabet Game
A classic, and one that had to be featured in this list of best family car games, is the alphabet game.
The rules of this game are simple, work best with two players, and with passengers who are over the age of 5. Starting from the letter ‘A’, passengers on either side of the car need to spot each letter of the alphabet in road signs, billboards, license plates, or anything else with letters as the car passes by them.
The winner is whoever can complete the entire alphabet.
ABC – Categories
Another ABC-based game where a category is picked, such as ‘animals’ and each player needs to name an animal beginning with the next letter of the alphabet.
For example, one player can start with ‘antelope’, the next person could say ‘badger’, and so on.
I Spy – a family car game classic!
A classic game, both on-road and off, the rules of I spy should be known by all, but it is a game that is so obvious that it is easily forgotten about.
‘ I spy’ becomes a whole lot trickier when in motion and is more engrossing for all.
Plus, it’s a game as old as time, so you’re sure to keep all members of your family entertained – even granny and grandpa!
Hypothetical Question Game
A simple one, and not a ‘game’ as such, but one that’ll keep all passengers quiet as they get lost in their imaginations.
Throw such questions as ‘what would you do with a thousand dollars?’, ‘what would you do if you were the president?’, and so on, out to the car, and determine a winner based on who makes the most people laugh, or who produces the most inventive answers.
What Color?
For this game, each passenger takes turns to mention a list of random items that have one thing in common – they feature a common color.
The passenger to guess what the common color first wins the round.
The Name Game
This game works best for kids who are 6 and above and can be adapted to fit any general theme.
Choose a theme, such as ‘countries’, and each passenger needs to name a country that starts with the last letter of the last country mentioned.
Depending on the theme, this game can go on forever, and become pretty challenging.
The Memory Game/The Picnic Game/In My Suitcase
This game goes by many names, but its premise remains mostly the same. The first player states something like:
‘I’m going on holiday, and I packed sunglasses.’
The next person adds to it while repeating the first player’s line, for example:
‘I’m going on holiday, and I packed sunglasses.
I’m going on holiday, and I packed a towel…’
And so on, until a player forgets a part of the list.
What Am I Counting?
This is a seriously inventive game that you may not have heard about.
A player needs to select something that the car either passes by regularly, or every couple of minutes, and start to count it every time they pass it.
The rest of the passengers need to try to figure out what it is they are counting.
20 Questions
This game could be your key to making the road trip pass easier, or it could equally cause it to become more tedious.
A player picks a character, a film, a celebrity, etc., and the rest of the car only has 20 questions to ask to guess what it is.
This can be simple and fun, or it can be complex and frustrating!
20 Math Questions
Who knew that math could be fun?
For this, a player needs to pick an arbitrary number between 0 and 100, and the rest of the car has 20 math-related questions that they can ask to guess what the number is.
Such as ‘is it less than 25?’ or ‘is it an even number?’.
License Plate Game
A family car games classic – all each passenger needs is a pen and paper.
Each player needs to write down the license plate of each new state that they see – the first to reach all fifty is declared the winner!
Feel free to make the game more complicated by adding additional points for those who can spell the state, or who can name the capital city.
Tune Hum
One of the more simple family car games that can involve the whole family bar, perhaps, your youngest kids.
A player hums a tune to a new or classic song, and the first person to guess what it is wins.
If you’ve got grandparents in the car, maybe limit the songs to classics or ones that they would definitely know.
The Waving Game
A seemingly endless source of fun, the waving game – or ‘smiles for miles’, as it is is sometimes called – is a game where each player tries to see how many responses they can get from other passengers in cars, either by smiling or waving.
Who Can Name All…?
With each round of this game a new category is picked, such as ‘countries in South America’, ‘breeds of dog’, or ‘types of fruit’, and each passenger needs to try and list as many as they can.
The Quiet Game – one of the most effective family car games!
This game is more for when all else fails, for when your youngsters’ energies are far too high for your liking, and you wish they could just calm down.
All you need to do is say: ‘who can keep quiet for the longest?’ and let them battle it out with complete silence. It may not last long, but it’ll surely give you a couple of minutes of quiet time at least.
Hopefully at least one or two of the family car games on this list will help you make it through your next road trip!