Ah, the glory of the American road. Millions pack up their cars every year and hit the interstates in search of family fun and togetherness. Minivans and SUVs are coming equipped with DVD players and handheld games like the Nintendo DS seem made for entertainment on a long road trip. But while the electronic babysitters are great for whiling away the hours, having some interactive activities available can go a lot further towards creating family vacation memories.
Type in “travel games for kids” on any search engine and you will come up with many websites offering great ideas. www.momsminivan.com offers us a list of great interactive games your children (and their parents!) can enjoy. Two that would work very well for those long trips involving multiple states are themed around tracking license plates. The first suggests printing out a map of the United States and having each child color in a state as they see a vehicle with that license plate. Momsminivan even includes links to websites where you can print the maps. Another interactive game to play with license plates focuses more on the letters on each plate. Each person has to come up with sentences or phrases with each word beginning with a letter from the plate. For example, a plate with the letters “SSR” could be turned into “Stop (to) Smell (the) Roses”. Keep track of who is fastest with these and make it a competition.
In our family, we often pass time in the car by playing a game we call “Disney World Twenty Questions. We use the traditional manner of asking questions to determine what the object is, but we theme it around our usual vacation destination. If your destination is a repeat for your family, get everyone excited by picking objects, places or people from that location. If you’re traveling somewhere new, have your guesses include places, people and things you’ve already seen and experienced on the trip. In addition to Twenty Questions, “I Spy” is also a great game that can be played any where. Find items in the car, in the suitcases, or outside the car to challenge each other.
Familyfun.com also had some great ideas to offer. Prior to the trip, put together a scavenger hunt to watch for while driving. Have each person only able to add items from their “side” of the road and make sure the items are relevant to the journey. Family Fun also describes a game found on several other websites called “Count the Cows. Pick a point to begin counting and have each person count all the cows they see out their side of the car windows. The person with the most at the designated end point wins. The challenge? Any time there is a cemetery on your side of the car, you lose all your counted cows and have to start over. Bring extra paper and crayons or pencils for tracking.
Spending just a few minutes online can really offer up many fun and interesting games for families to play. The point of a vacation is to get away from it all and reconnect as a family, so put the electronics aside for a while and see what happens when the family plays together. You may be surprised what else the togetherness will spark!
