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Filling Time on a Boring Drive: Road Trip Games
I spent the last 5 days driving across the Canadian prairies with my friend Sarah. We drove about 2800 km in total (about 1740 miles for you non-metrics), entertained only by a few CDs randomly chucked into the car in haste, one gossip magazine and about 50 country music stations per town. Oh, and a few road trip games made up for such purposes, such as:Cows: My friend Alissa taught me this. Whenever you pass a field of cows, you yell cows and quickly count the number of cows in the field, to a maximum of 17.
You can then bank that number of cows and at the end of the trip, the person with the most cows wins. The catch is cemeteries. If one of your opponents sees a cemetery, they can get rid of all of your cows by yelling cemetery! It's pretty thrilling when you're surrounded by pretty much nothing but cows. Though don't play it on a bus -- people will think you're strange for being so happy to see a cemetery.
License plate: The object of this game is to make the best word or phrase out of the letters on a license plate. For example, a plate that reads JXT 986 could be Juxtaposition 983! (with exclamation mark because you must yell it out.) Or UKJ 123 could be Ukulele Jingle or Yukon Jack 123! The judging part can be a bit tricky, but I guess there are no real winners -- it's about bringing creativity to the car.
Cars: Each person picks a color. Say you pick Blue and your opponent picks white. You count the blue cars that you see, and your opponent counts the white cars. Whoever gets to, say, 15 first wins. Yay!
You know, when you write them down, they sound pretty dull. Here's a list of some more interesting games that I will bring next time I spend so much time in the car.
License plate: The object of this game is to make the best word or phrase out of the letters on a license plate. For example, a plate that reads JXT 986 could be Juxtaposition 983! (with exclamation mark because you must yell it out.) Or UKJ 123 could be Ukulele Jingle or Yukon Jack 123! The judging part can be a bit tricky, but I guess there are no real winners -- it's about bringing creativity to the car.
Cars: Each person picks a color. Say you pick Blue and your opponent picks white. You count the blue cars that you see, and your opponent counts the white cars. Whoever gets to, say, 15 first wins. Yay!
You know, when you write them down, they sound pretty dull. Here's a list of some more interesting games that I will bring next time I spend so much time in the car.
Filed under: Stories
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Maggy Jul 5th 2007 2:53PM
I love these games. Brings back alot of great memories! LOL
ebhamel2 Jul 5th 2007 3:15PM
These are all fabulously funny games, and on the same humorous note, gotta ask.... with all that looking around who's driving the car??????
Arlene Jul 5th 2007 9:38PM
Fun games in the car. Here is a good one, Purple truck. See how man you can find and they have to be purple. Suprising how many there are.
Steph Jul 5th 2007 3:19PM
The best time passer is to get audio books and listen to them. You can rent audio books from cracker barrel for $ 3.50 per week and return them to any cracker barrel as your trip progresses.
We drove 4000 miles on one trip from TN to Oregon and used these books to pass time.
SK Jul 5th 2007 3:31PM
I played the cows game with my mom when I was little. She played it when she was little too. I've also played the game where you look for every letter of the alphabet by looking at signs and plates... J,Q, and X are the hardest usually to find... A couple of weeks ago when I was bored and on a road trip and we were in heavy traffic, I went on the look out for hot/fancy cars with my friends and then tried desperately to get good pictures of them... it actually got fun. I got a couple of corvettes and a viper.
TheCAGE Jul 5th 2007 3:32PM
Here's another idea, why dont you just sleep, when my parents and I drove from South Dakota to Florida, I just laid in the backseat, listened to music, and sometimes fell asleep.
Jana Jul 6th 2007 3:59PM
We make up games like these too. One that is fun is a play on the alphabit game. Instead of finding the alphabit from A to Z, find things that start with an A (animal, arch, etc) to Z (Zipper, Zoo, etc). Takes longer and is fun for adults too. By the way, we make the rule that the things you find have to be outside the car. Stuff inside doesn't count.
zacUpquark Jul 5th 2007 3:59PM
"I Packed my Grandmother's trunk"
FIrst person says, "I packed my grandmothers trunk, and in it I put ..." then adds something beginning with "A". Next person repeats with the "A" item, and adds a "B". Next repeats both and adds "C", etc.
You can "theme" the trunk based on where you're going, like a "beach trunk" or a "Disney trunk"
Great time waster ... I mean PASSER.
Jon Jul 5th 2007 3:59PM
Heres an idea...
Drive Faster!!
Amy Jul 5th 2007 4:09PM
I can't believe someone else plays "License Plate." That's something I do on a daily basis because I tend to see something in the letters of cars' plates.
Greg Jul 5th 2007 4:24PM
SPUD! Thats what we always played on road trips or on the school bus. You say SPUD when you see a VW Beetle. Who ever get the most at the end of the trip wins. It was a MASSIVE hit too but after thinking back to it, i dont know why! :-)
ChaCha Jul 5th 2007 4:26PM
How about singing? We used to sing all the songs we knew, the craziest of all being the countdown song,"100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall." If you dislike the beer reference you can make it root beer : )
Susan Jul 5th 2007 4:38PM
I used to play "Cows" with my Mom when I was little. When I got older I played "Beaver Car" with my best friend from high school. Everytime we'd see a station wagon with wood panels on the side, we'd yell "Beaver Car"! Not too many of those around these days, but it was fun!
Cindy Jul 5th 2007 4:50PM
We played Billboard Alphabet too. Drivers side gets left side of the road, passenger side gets right. ALL signs are fair. You find the letters of the alphabet on the signs, in order - The side that finishes first wins. Some letters are hard to find,Q & Z, makes everyone look really hard! Also, can be played in teams or one on one.
Lissa Jul 5th 2007 4:56PM
Another good game is "I Spy". You can only play this game with items inside the car or if you are stuck in a bad traffic jam. The object is to pick something in the car that is a certain color and say, "I spy something blue". Then the person would have three guesses to choose the right object. If the person cannot guess the right blue object, you would get a point. When we go on road trips, we usually play up to 5 or 7.
Jimmie E. Ferrier Jul 5th 2007 5:04PM
My wife and I recently drove over 4,200 miles on vacation and never turned on the radio, played a disc or cassette yet we got along fabulousy. We took our time averaging 350-375 miles per day on our way to Yellowstone National park. On our way we re-visited Mt. Rushmore, Wall's Drug Store, the Corn Palace plus other interesting sites. We hve been married over 50 years so maybve thast's it.
phillip Jul 5th 2007 5:07PM
(even or odd) pick teams
the overpass signs that have the hights listed on the bridge the inch's is what we use.... even or odd
If the team doesn't call their bridge (even or odd) or they forget to look, if it's their point don't call it, it doesn't count
mary Jul 5th 2007 5:28PM
My ex taught me this game and I've been passing it on to all my new boyfriends ever since. Someone start first and name a celebrity like "Angelina Jolie". Now the second person has to take the last name initial "J" and think of another celebrity that starts with that letter like "Justin Timberlake". Then next person might go "Tim Allen". This game can be played by more than two people and you win when the other person gives up or you can play by timing. If there's no time, this game can go on forever. Enjoy!
KD Jul 5th 2007 7:09PM
We used to play a variation of #18 (Mary) game. My name is Allen, I sell Apples. In arizona. DON'T get the Q or the Z...lol
Lauren Jul 5th 2007 7:21PM
Car trips definitely can drag on. My best friend and I made up a great time passing game, though. All you do is stare at the people in the cars that pass by. It's ideal for driving on the interstate, and it's fun to try to keep a straight face when the people in the other cars notice you. Sometimes just to mix it up, we'll dance, make crazy faces, and mouth songs at the people. On one memorable occasion, we wore masks while playing. It's really amusing to watch the different reactions you get, and it passes the time very effectively.
Also, when I went to Europe recently, whenever we rode our tour bus to a different location for an extended amount of time, I picked a different type of car and tried to take a picture of each one I saw. It ended up being surprisingly fun!