The Best Games to Play in the Car with the Kids

The thought of keeping the kids entertained on a long road trip can be daunting. But with these fun games, you can stave off the calls of “are we there yet” without even needing to reach for the iPad.

Licence Plate Bingo

Players all grab a pen and paper and write down an 8-letter word. Players will then have to watch traffic and parked cars, checking the licence plates of as many as possible. Every time they see a letter from their word, they can cross it off. The first player to cross off all their letters wins!

You can make this game last longer by using the entire alphabet – the first person who spots all 26 letters wins the game.

Road Trip Bingo

The players get a set of items to look for on the journey. You can decide what objects feature depending on where you’re driving – maybe it will include cows, cacti or cabs! The first person to find all the items on the list wins.

You can make this game harder by making the objects more specific, for example a blue billboard or white horse.

Car Colour Race

This is a simple game and can suit children of most ages. Every player picks a colour. They then have to look out for cars in their colour and count how many they see. The first person who sees 10 cars in their colour wins!

You can make this game longer by having it span the entire journey. Whoever has seen the most cars in their colour by the time you reach your destination is the winner.

The Shopping List Game

This game will really test player’s memory! Players take it in terms to name items from the shop in alphabetical order. So, player one might say “I went to the shops and I bought apples”. And then player two will say “I went to the shops and I bought apples and bananas” and so on until you reach the end of the alphabet. Every item needs to be remembered, so this will get harder the longer the game goes on!

The Story Game

This is an easy game that all ages can get involved with. Someone starts the story with a sentence, for example “Once upon a time there was a person”. The next player then says the next sentence in the story, such as “the person was driving on holiday”. Keep going round the players continuing the story and see how imaginative you can get!

20 Questions

One person thinks of a person, place or thing. The other players then have to ask yes-or-no questions to try to work out what it is. The players are only allowed to ask 20 questions before they have to make their guess of what the first person was thinking of.

Yellow Car Game

Yellow cars are rare. With this game, whoever spots a yellow car first gets a point. Whoever has the most points by the time you reach your destination, wins! You can also add bonus points for the number of passengers, so if a player spots a full yellow car, they get more points.

Word Association

One person starts the game by saying a word – the word can be anything! The next player then has to say the first word that comes to their mind that’s connected to the first word. This game works best when it’s fast-paced so deduct points if anyone takes too long to say their word.

 I Spy

When all else fails, the classics are the best. To play I Spy, the spy finds something either inside or outside the car and declares “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with” and then says the letter it begins with. Players then take it in turns to guess what it is.

This game is especially good if you’re stuck in a traffic jam and aren’t moving very fast!

Now you know how to keep the kids entertained on your road trip, you can plan what you need for your car hire. Direct Car Hire Excess can protect you with car rental excess car insurance in Europe or worldwide, so you won’t have to face any hefty excess payments on your car hire insurance. We also have a handy guide that shows you all you need to know about car hire so you can hire with full peace of mind.