Road Trip
You can save a lot of money by driving to your vacation destination! Road trip doesn’t have to mean roughing it or living out of your car. For our purposes road trip just mean you are getting to our destination and traveling within your destination by a vehicle you are driving. There are several types of road trips you can choose from:
United States Roadtrips
We’ve visited all 50 states with our kids. While we did use a cruise for Alaska, the other trips were multi-city road trips. Take a peak at our itineraries with details below.
See all our Roadtrip Posts
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If you are looking for ideas to keep kids happy, entertained, and quiet on your next Road Trip with kids, keep reading! I have 6 kids and have traveled to EVERY state in the US with my crew. We don’t just survive family roadtrips – we have FUN! We make memories. We have a great time. Seriously! Here are some ideas for helping kids have fun as you drive in the van between attractions.
Road Trip with Kids
I’ve had lots of people ask in our planning a roadtrip, what we were planning to do with the kids in the car for 5 weeks! I think with a little planning, thinking about the kids’ needs, and a sense of humor a road trip can be an amazing opportunity to bond as a family and create priceless memories! So here are 50+ ideas for Car Trip Fun!
There are several road trip games and road trip ideas images that are clickable with additional information, how-to’s, and free printables! Don’t miss the 20+ free printable car games (a huge car resource in itself).
Road Trip Games
Are you planning a family road trip and worried about keeping the kids entertained during those long hours in the car? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with 20 fun road trip games for kids that will make the journey fly by!
- I Spy: One player picks an object they see and gives a clue like “I spy with my little eye something red”.
- License Plate Game: Have a competition to spot license plates from different states.
- Alphabet Game: Find items outside the car that start with each letter of the alphabet in order.
- 20 Questions: One player thinks of an object, and the others have only 20 questions to guess it.
- Car Bingo: Create bingo cards with common road trip sights and see who can get bingo first.
- Name That Tune: Hum a tune and have the others guess the song.
- The Movie Game: Name a movie, and the next player has to name an actor from that movie, and so on.
- Storytelling: Take turns adding to a story one sentence at a time.
- License Plate Alphabet: Find letters of the alphabet in order on license plates.
- Animal Name Game: Name an animal, and the next player has to name an animal that starts with the last letter of the previous animal.
- Travel Scavenger Hunt: Create a list of items to spot along the road.
- Telephone: Whisper a message around the car and see how it changes by the end.
- Categories: Choose a category like fruits or animals and take turns naming items in that group.
- Tic-Tac-Toe: Use a sheet of paper and some markers to play this classic game.
- Rhyme Time: Say a word and see who can come up with a word that rhymes.
- Spot the Car: Choose a color or make of car and count how many you see.
- Would You Rather: Ask “Would you rather” questions and have a discussion.
- 20 Questions Animal Edition: Think of an animal, and the others have only 20 questions to guess it.
- Punch Buggy: Spot a VW Beetle and shout “Punch Buggy” followed by the color.
- Spot the Sign: Find different types of road signs and tally how many of each you see.
How to organize the car for a family Roadtrip
Pick up a plastic or canvas bin that will fit neatly in between two seats or on the floor under a carseat so it doesn’t take up much room. Teach your kids that, just like their room at home, it needs to be tidied. Once they finish with something it goes back in the box, not the floor. This will help keep the car organized!
- magnetic shape board
- magna doodle
- view master
- magic pen pads
- coloring book and crayons
- mad lib and pen for older students
- their favorite small toys like ation figures, barbies, hot wheels, etc – Make sure to hide them a coule weeks before your trip so they will be extra fun in the car
- We do also have an ipad that I loaded with a couple of their favorite movies & shows, but the kids actually didn’t really touch it. Since undoubtedly someone will ask – NO I don’t think kids need to be entertained 100% of the time! My kids are actually very self-entertaining. They can usually play by themselves doing one activity for an hour or more. And they also enjoy just looking out the window, singing songs as a family, talking, telling stories, sleeping, and talking amongst themselves. But when you spend about 150 hours driving in the car in one year you’ve got to plan for success!! =-)
Plus you have to remember we took 2 long trips this year: a 2 week Revolutionary War Trip out East and a 3 week Westward expansion / Rout 66 Roadtrip West. So this box entertained our children as we traveled from sea to shinning sea – literally!
There you go – hopefully that was helpful as you are planning a roadtrip & you found a new road trip ideas to make your road trips more fun and memorable. Do you have any great road trip games I’ve missed? I’d love to hear your tips & tricks too! Here are some great resources we’ve used and LOVE!
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