7 Games to Play With Children on a Road Trip to Keep Them off Their Phones

Put the screens away and rely on these simple diversions to eat up the miles.

Benjamin Hunting | 

Oct 23, 2024 | 5 min read

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Long road trips can put a child's boredom tolerance to the test and prove stressful for parents who want to balance keeping kids amused while restricting their screen time. Fun for children of all ages, these interactive games offer a welcome alternative to apps and will help them stay engaged and distracted from just how long they've been sitting in the back seat.

Travel Bingo Goes Big

You might remember license plate bingo from your own childhood, when family members would pick between six and 12 numbers, write them all on a piece of paper, and then try to be the first to scoop up all of their digits by spotting them on license plates passing by on the highway.

The spirit of license plate bingo is still with us, and some game companies have picked up the torch and run with it to produce more in-depth versions. Travel bingo games ask young ones to keep an eye out for interstate signs, airplanes, natural landmarks like rivers, different kinds of buildings such as farm houses, and types of vehicles. You can also find license plate specific sets that challenge players to snag as many different states as they can observe.

The packs are cheap — license plate travel bingo cards retail for around $10 — and reusable and can help keep children's minds focused on their surroundings on longer trips.

20 Questions Keeps Them Guessing

20 Questions is the kind of game that everyone in the car can enjoy, even the driver. It can help keep parents alert when the drive turns monotonous. The rules are simple and designed to spark the natural curiosity inside every child.

One person thinks of a person, place, or thing, and then each player has up to 20 questions to try to guess what it is. Time to break out traditional queries such as "animal, mineral, or vegetable" and get started on unearthing the secret.

Alphabetize Your Journey

Games that challenge children to think can be a great way to mask the fact that they're learning at the same time as playing. The alphabet is a rich source of this kind of fun, starting with classics such as animal alphabet, in which players name every creature they can whose name starts with the letter A and work their way to Z. If you've got multiple young ones along for the ride, they can take turns alternating letters.

Animal alphabet is a simple concept, and it can be customized to suit the tastes of your kids. If you've got a young automotive enthusiast in the passenger seat, go for the names of cars. Budding paleontologists can name particular dinosaurs. If they're more into music, ask them to name bands or artists for each letter.

The possibilities are endless, which is a good thing when you need to get through hours on the road.

Tune Up the Family Band

Speaking of music, your own collection — or a convenient streaming service — can be an easy and fun way to keep children entertained beyond the pleasure of listening to the songs themselves. Name That Tune lets an adult act as the disc jockey, playing the opening bars of each track and then asking passengers to try to guess either its name or the name of the musical act, awarding points for each correct identification.

If you want to make the game extra challenging, try humming the song instead.

Children's musical tastes can range far and wide, depending on what they've been exposed to, which means you can fine-tune the game into different genres or time periods that reflect the interests of those who are in the game. This lets metalheads, oldies fans, and Swifties all play along at the same time.

I Spy for the SUV Crew

If you're driving a larger vehicle such as an SUV, you've got enough real estate to resurrect a classic road-trip game. I Spy asks one person to find something that's in everyone's field of vision inside the car. Clues are gradually offered as to what it might be so that the other players can try to guess the answer.

They start with the phrase, "I spy with my little eye something that …" filling in the blank with a characteristic or fact about the mystery object, such as its color or the first letter of its name.

An SUV or a minivan make the most sense for this game, since there's more room inside for interesting I Spy objects to be selected. If you're willing to widen the field to include the road or sky around the vehicle, however, the game can be played in almost any type of vehicle.

Storytime Lets Children Get Creative

You can sharpen your children's storytelling skills and tap into their endless imagination in more than a few ways. Triple Threat is one of the most popular, a game in which an adult presents a trio of seemingly unrelated words, and then asks the children to tell a story that includes all three words.

This game is fun because it lets children get silly. The more unrelated the words, the wilder things will likely get as the kids try to tie them together. It also encourages them to unleash their creativity as they build links between the story prompts.

Car Counting Is a Classic

For younger ones who might feel left out of more complex games, simple car counting can be a lot of fun, especially if you spice it up by adding in a few small details to spot.

You can always start out with the basics by asking children to keep track of red, blue, or green cars, with the goal of being the first to get to 10. After that, for slightly older tots, you can switch to types of vehicles — trucks, buses, trailers — or cars with a certain number of passengers or even farm machinery or cows on the side of the road.

Benjamin Hunting

Benjamin Hunting is a writer and podcast host who contributes to a number of newspapers, automotive magazines, and online publications. More than a decade into his career, he enjoys keeping the shiny side up during track days and always has one too many classic vehicle projects partially disassembled in his garage at any given time. Remember, if it's not leaking, it's probably empty.