Travel Games?

[UTEng]

I remember playing miniature versions of regular board games when my family traversed the US years ago. Games like Trouble, Yatzee, etc. Has anyone seen anything like these games in any stores. Went to Wally World over the weekend and didn't see anything on their shelves. Of course, their regular games section was pretty poor to begin with.

Taking the first road trip with the wife and 2 boys in July. Would like to have alternatives to the portable video games!

 

[YoLaDu]

go to Amazon. Type in: "travel games" in the search bar.

Travel yatzee, travel battleship, travel trouble are all available. Travel Trouble looks to be a "collectible" however. Probably not making them anymore.

Lots of good stuff there. You should be good to go. Have a fun vacation.

 

[LITNIN HORN]

Have the kids track license plates...see how many states they can come up with during the trip. We did this on one of our vacations, and saw Hawaii and Alaska before ten other states.

 

[l00p]

If you do any night driving, rate the trucks. Rate them on their lights. You guys decide what number, 1 through 10, a truck is and why. Some are so boring you want them to have a negative and sometimes laugh on the exclamations. Then there are the average ones. But wait for it, here comes an awesome one over the horizon.

It may have a cross on the grill, extra lights on cab and trailer and one or two of those purple glow lights. The oooh's and aaaah's resound and a score of 9 or maybe that 10 nobody has earned yet is given out.

It sounds maybe boring here but growing up we played it and it was pretty fun. I still, to this day, will think to myself how awesome a truck is if they did it up right. I appreciate their effort.

 

[lostman]

l00p - I love rating the trucks! You are right - the good ones are few and far between, but you do appreciate their efforts!

A couple three more suggestions - the alphabet game. Using signs along the road, each person races to get through the alphabet. You must announce the word you are using from the sign and the letter. You can only use one letter from a word, and another person can not use the same word for the same letter, but can use it for a different letter. We had little candy bars or something like that for the "winner" or for good finds.

Make up a scavenger hunt list for each of the kids (can be same or different depending on ages) of things to look for while on the trip. It can just be a check off list, or if they have little digital cameras, they can take pics of things. Look for things like a Harley, a cow on a sign, 3 red cars, a semi from Mc Donalds. Throw in some creative ones like a rock group or half moon. We offered the kids a dollar for each one they found and then that was their spending money for souveniers etc.

Finally, determine how many hours the trip will be and buy a lottery ticket for each kid for each hour in the car. Each hour they get a ticket. If they won small amounts we spotted them the cash if they wanted to buy anything, and then kept the ticket. Once we had one that won $100 - waited till we got home to cash that one in. The hard part for them is waiting an hour! You might want to double up and get some for the trip home too!

 

[l00p]

Just thought of one that is sort of like the license plate one. See how many different University or College window stickers you see. Set about talking a bit about the state or town/city it is in. It could be fun when you find one really obscure or one you don't even know about.

 

[UTEng]

Great ideas. I do remember the alphabet and license plate games. My two boys are still young enough (7 & 5) that they need most things to be tangible, so we'll see how these go. I like the little candy bar prizes, though.

 

[LITNIN HORN]

Something else...when I was a kid, we'd count cows. My cousin would have one side of the road, and I would have the other. Whoever had the most at the end of the trip won...lots of cheating, as I remember.

Of course it could be horses, goats, pigs, whatever. There's also cemeteries. The thing I always liked about doing that sort of thing, was the concentration it involved. Saw a lot of things we wouldn't have noticed if we didn't have our eyes on the countryside.