The best road trip games need nothing but your voices and the view out the window. They work when the cell signal drops, they involve the whole car, and they turn a long stretch of interstate into something everyone remembers. Most of the classics below can be learned in under a minute.
We have grouped these road trip games by type, with notes on which ages they suit, so you can pick the right one for a car full of preschoolers or a group of adults.
Classic road trip games everyone knows
I Spy
One player picks something visible and says “I spy with my little eye something…” followed by a color or a first letter. Everyone else guesses. For moving cars, choose things that will stay in view for a while, like a mountain or something inside the car.
20 Questions
One person thinks of a person, place or thing. The others ask up to 20 yes-or-no questions to figure it out. It scales well from young kids (animals only) to adults (historical figures, movies, obscure foods).
The License Plate Game
Try to spot a plate from every state over the course of the trip. Keep a list on paper or a printed map and check off each state as you see it. On a long cross-country drive, it can keep going for days.
The Alphabet Game
Find each letter of the alphabet in order on signs, billboards and trucks outside the car. Q, X and Z are the tough ones. Play cooperatively with young kids and competitively with older ones.
Word and storytelling games
Would You Rather
Ask the car to choose between two options: “Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?” The follow-up discussion is often more fun than the answer. Adults can use trickier or funnier dilemmas.
Story Chain
One person starts a story with a single sentence. Each player adds the next sentence in turn. The story usually goes off the rails within three rounds, which is the point.
Categories
Pick a category (fruits, cities, cartoon characters) and a letter. Players take turns naming something that fits until someone gets stuck. Another version: go around the car naming items in a category in alphabetical order.
Name That Tune
One person hums a song and the others guess the title. It works across generations, especially if parents and kids have to guess each other’s music.
Observation games for younger kids
- Road trip bingo: print or draw cards with common sights (a cow, a red truck, a water tower, a gas station, a bridge) and mark them off as you pass.
- Color hunt: each child picks a color and counts cars of that color for ten minutes.
- Cow counting: count cows on your side of the car. If you pass a cemetery on your side, you lose them all. Simple and surprisingly dramatic.
- The quiet game: the first person to talk loses. Parents rarely admit how useful this one is.
Road trip games for adults
Grown-ups get bored on long drives too. A few games suit a car of adults especially well:
- Two Truths and a Lie: each person says three statements about themselves and the others guess which one is false.
- Movie connections: name an actor, then the next player names a movie they were in, then another actor from that movie, and so on.
- Geography: name a place, and the next player must name a place starting with the last letter of the previous one.
- Desert island picks: everyone chooses five albums, books or foods they would take to a desert island, then defends their choices.
Games that need a little prep
A few minutes of preparation at home can pay off over hundreds of miles.
- Road trip scavenger hunt: write a list of things to find along the way, some easy (a red barn, a gas station with a flag) and some rare (a hitchhiker’s thumbs-up sign, a vintage car). Award points by difficulty.
- Trivia envelopes: prepare questions about the states you will cross and open one envelope at each state line.
- Fill-in-the-blank stories: a pad of fill-in-the-blank stories keeps older kids laughing, and a passenger can read the results aloud.
- Audiobook guessing game: pause a family audiobook at a cliffhanger and have everyone predict what happens next before you press play.
Tips for keeping games fun on long drives
Rotate games before anyone gets bored, and let kids choose the next one. Keep the driver’s role light: guessing games and music games are fine, but anything that needs reading or looking away from the road should stay with the passengers. A small notebook, a pencil and a clipboard make the License Plate Game and bingo much easier.
Games work best alongside well-timed breaks and food. Pair them with a bin of easy road trip snacks so nobody gets hungry and cranky midway through a round of 20 Questions. And when you are choosing where to drive next, browse the country’s most memorable drives, route by route, since a changing landscape gives observation games far more material than a flat interstate.
Road trip games FAQ
What are good road trip games without screens?
I Spy, 20 Questions, the License Plate Game, the Alphabet Game, Would You Rather and Story Chain all need nothing but conversation.
What road trip games work for toddlers?
Keep it simple: color hunts, spotting animals, singing songs together and a very easy version of I Spy based on colors.
Can the driver play road trip games?
Yes, as long as the game is purely verbal, like 20 Questions or Name That Tune. Leave reading, writing and bingo cards to passengers.
