HELP! Road trip approaching - need family games to pass the time! Ideas?

[peacebird]

We will be doing the State tags and alphabet game but I really need some other ideas for four days on the road.....

:hi:

thanks!

[fizzgig]

1. try some of these

http://www.momsminivan.com/printables.html

of course, the alphabet game was always my favorite (although it did spawn many a disagreement over whether my sister actually did see the letter she said she did :))

safe trip

:hi:

[peacebird]

4. LOVE the travel Bingo and scavenger hunts!!! THANK YOU!

:toast:
They are great!

[Nicole]

2. Scavenger Hunt for Dinner.

We used to play that. Make a list of items you will probably see on the trip. The first person to yell it out gets a check by their name. The person with the most checks at the end of each day gets to pick the type of food for dinner, the parents decide which restaurant.

[peacebird]

5. Excellent! Can use it to pick the restaurant for lunch too!

Great idea!

:toast:

[skygazer]

3. Roll up the windows and smoke a big fat one

The kids will spend the trip either laughing, eating or sleeping.

[peacebird]

6. LOL! Novel idea but not *quite* what I was looking for...!

[grasswire]

7. we had a lot of fun last summer...

...on a day trip by making up our own game:

Points can be won/lost by things you see on YOUR side of the car.

A McDonald's gets you one point

Mexican restaurant one point but you have to sing "La cucaracha, la cucaracha" to get it. Just those four words, not the whole song.

Chinese restaurant one point

BBQ two points

Seafood three points

Fruit stand on your side of the road -- lose five points

Dairy QUEEN three points but Burger KING lose two.

Make up your own version. It's especially fun if you make up a little something they must do if they see certain things. In fact, the whole game could be "things you do when you see this" without any point system. Chicken restaurant, holler cockadoodledoo! Bark like a dog for a hot dog stand. Etc.

[peacebird]

8. Wonderful idea! Thinking up the "action" for each sighting will be a blast!

I think I will ask for suggestions this week, and make up the "rules" after I hear back!

:party:

This could be a blast!

[dembotoz]

9. portable dvd player

kids in back. dvd plugged into cig lighter
really amazing results
they get plugged in and they tune out.

11 year old plays hockey
tournaments up to 9 hours a way
(yes i lead a fun life)
dvd is life saver

[grasswire]

10. singalongs are always SO great, too

It's a good opportunity for them to learn funny old songs they might not get in daily life. Songs of the roaring twenties like Bye Bye Blackbird or I'm Lookin' Over a Four-leaf Clover. American songs like My Country Tis of Thee and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Folk songs like If I Had a Hammer and This Land Is Your Land. Or the crazier rock and roll songs like Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini or Purple People Eater.

The opportunities are endless. A John Denver CD could be a good place to start. And the Muppet recordings are good for singalong.

[petronius]

11. My dad liked to play 'be quiet, godammit, or I'll smack you again!'

I didn't think it was all that much fun...

(OK, that didn't really happen.) We used to love the license plate game - trying to spot them all, as well as "I spy..." and 'who can count the most VW Bugs' (which doesn't work as well anymore).

[lutefisk]

12. Books on cd/tape work well for our family.

Games, singing, and talking can only last so long.

[Jamastiene]

13. Don't forget what fun singing can be.

99 bottles of beer on the wall (can be changed to milk on the wall.)
Bingo b i ngo b i ngo and bingo was his namo

there are tons, but I don't want to be the person to drop an ear worm necessarily.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. "Who can swallow the most barbed wire", "Sucking the air out of dad's spare tire"

"Hey, kids, start throwing up on the tables now so that we don't have to pay for dinner"

That was one of my dad's favorite road games!

Though his favorite was "Make Dad a Martini and bring it up front without spilling any of it you little bastards and then shut up for a goddamn minute once in a while, would you? Jesus Christ" game, with which I'm sure you're all familiar.

Oh, and "Who can punch the hardest".

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. Just go the modern negligent parent model and dope 'em up with DVDs and iPods

Why interact when you can rot their brains and basically dope them into submission with videos, video games, and personal stereos so they don't have to see any scenery, talk with anyone, or learn anything except that they have a right to a 24/7 electronic entertainment feed directly into their brains and that the world needs to revolve around their inability to sit still, because their parents never bothered to fucking teach them how, instead of them adjusting to the needs of the world.

[mike_c]

16. I always found drinking games to be the most effective at keeping the kids quiet....

After the initial exuberance wears off, of course.