These Are The Games You Play On Road Trips

Welcome back from your long weekend off to this Second Monday (simply known as Tuesday). Wherever your travels may have taken you, I hope the journey was more entertaining or at least more exciting than my road trip of enlightenment in finding out how many more gas stations are now along 31 on my travels to Michigan from Indianapolis. But I will argue that these were crucial bathroom break locations to clock!

Over the long weekend of touching grass and hopefully staying mostly off of the internet, I asked you about the games you play on road trips. Posting it on a holiday weekend left us a little lighter on answers, but there were still some good ones to choose from. The classics certainly made the comments, but to my delight there were some unique games I had never heard of. Some of you though, were or are happy to tune out everyone at times and kick back with a book or some music, or just plain sleep your way through states to the destination (obviously if you were not the driver).

With that, here are some of the games you play (or have played) on road trips, complete with some hopefully clever photos.

First off – Nobody in our vehicle even owns a cell-phone. There are no screens for people to stare at so we play old-school games.

Sometimes we'll do the alphabet game with road signs and billboards. Or we'll just choose a topic and go through the alphabet taking turns. For example: The first topic might be, "Restaurants". The first person would suggest Applebees, the second person would say Bennigan's, the third person would say Chilis, etc. Then after we finished, someone else would pick a topic and we'll start over with the next person up. If a topic doesn't have something anyone can think of for Q,X, or Z, we just skip those letters.

These are relatively easy games that don't involve much driver distraction.

From Anonymous Person

I used to play 'mint race' with my kids. I guess it's the opposite of a race. Everyone takes an Altoid and the last one to still have mint left wins. It was dumb, but it kept us quiet for a while. The last time I remember playing, I just left it on my tongue without sucking on it at all.

And

When I had four kids in the back of the Suburban the Quiet Game was a classic. A dollar to the kid who could stay quiet the longest. My middle son figured out the cheat code...go to sleep.

From Clay Horste and Vanillasludge

This goes back to before our kids had devices in the car, but we still played it after they did: The "Fortunately/Unfortunately" game. Starts with one person describing a scenario. Each subsequent person adds one sentence. Subsequent sentences alternate starting with "Fortunately" or "Unfortunately." Also played a lot of yes/no guessing games.

From Manny Sanguine

Locate the damage on the Altima

From Fireonthehorizon

Sometimes I also like to guess how the Altima came about getting the damage, but that usually reveals itself fairly quickly.

I play the "how long before my wife falls asleep after insisting she won't fall asleep after having us start a podcast she really wanted us to listen to together, but she won't be SO asleep that she won't say 'hey I'm listening' when I try to change it to my preferred podcast to listen to while she sleeps" game. It usually takes about 20-30 minutes.

From RmB

I went to a small K-8 school where the 7th and 8th graders took a yearly weeklong bus trip to Yosemite (it's a road vehicle so I'm counting it as a road trip). When my class went on the trip, my friend had a set of cards with movie quotes on them, and we would quiz each other on which movie said quote came from. Whoever got the most correct won. I have so many quotes from movies I have never seen still stuck in my head to this day.

From Giantsgiants

BURY YOUR COWS

You each count the cows on your side of the car. If you see a cemetery on either side of the car, you say 'bury your cows!' and the other person has to start over.

Highest number of cows at the end of the trip wins.

And

In the 1950s my backseat companion sister would play "Count the Cows" driving through Amishland in Pennsylvania while our parents chain-smoked Pall Malls up front. You'd count the bovines on your side of the car and lost all of them if you passed a graveyard. My sister, being older and more experienced in the route, would pick her seat so I would hit a cemetery just before our destination.

And

Still did this on road trips with my friends in the 2010s through middle America, with the slight variation in that whoever calls out the cows, churches ("marry my cows," doubling one's count), or graveyards ("bury your cows," halving everyone else's counts) first gets the associated effects rather than basing claims on particular sides of the vehicle. On my most recent motorcycle trip, I introduced this to the crew over the cardo. Turns out its harder on bikes cause the person in front has a major advantage...

From Poorsche, JayByrdJr, and springmind

None. You think I actually want to interact with anyone in the car? That involves talking.

Rick C.

My dad and I would try to name the cars by the tail lights, which lead to me knowing the make and model of every car on the street by the 5th. Later, in HS, I found out that wasn't normal.

From Marcus C

Even the commenters clocked that Torch would be interested in this game. Also, if it makes you feel any better Marcus, I was the kid in drivers' ed that when asked what was behind me while driving would identify the make, model, color and sometimes year of the car behind me. My instructor let me know she just wanted to know if there was a car behind me.

Advanced car spotting:

Orange Car – 1 point

Yellow Car – 2 points

Green Car – 2 points

Oil slick Car – 5 points

Gold Car – next spot is doubled (the bonus can also double if another gold car is spotted)

Yellow motorcycle – spotter wins the game.

Purple Car – 3 points taken away from one player chosen by the spotter

Pink Car – 3 points taken away from all players apart from the spotter

Hat trick – one player spots 3 in a row of one colour – get a bonus of the points for that colour.

From Tom

Quick ... someone make up little cards you can print up or have on your phone for a reference guide to play this.