Are we there yet travel games

Then have your child close his eyes and pick a strip of paper from the small bag. If he can guess what the item is, he gets to pick out and play with the toy or read the book from the large bag. Depending on the length of your trip, have your child pick a treasure hint from the small bag every so many hours or miles. Have everyone except the driver!

The winner is the one who guesses the speed closest to the actual speed of the car. When you are ready to begin, set the odometer and state the time. The player whose guess is closest wins. If your child loves to collect, use your trip as an excuse to find stamps, post cards, snow globes, or other mementos from your travels.

How many different kinds of rocks did you collect? Categorize them into sizes. How about shells? Have your child choose a passing car. Using the letters on its license plate, help him make up a phrase beginning with those letters.

The funnier your sentences are, the better! Choose a word, then let the rest of the car race to name its antonym, or opposite. The winner gets to pick the next word. Here are some words to get you started:.

If a vowel is at the beginning of a word, leave it there but still add the ay to the end:. Someone in the car thinks up a title for a story. You may want to set time limits for each player or for the length of the story itself. Have your child silently pick something she sees outside the window, such as red barns, spotted cows or telephone poles.

The Idea Box Kids is a small biz based in Wilsonville, Oregon, that specializes in kid-powered, secretly educational activities. Promising review: " We had seven flights over two weeks — this book saved us. Our 5-year-old happily played with this book for hours— we bought all kinds of activity books and activities, and she chose this one again and again. Her 1-year-old sister enjoyed playing with the sticker scraps. We will be getting more of these in the future. They are great if you have a kid who likes puzzles.

Promising review: "Great activity for travel! Kept my very wiggly 6-year-old busy on a series of flights. I am ordering another one for travel next week. The stickers feature letters, numbers, vehicles, butterflies, deep-sea life, animals, fish, dinosaurs, and more.

Promising review: "These are great little stickers. Good quality and great value. There are a ton in the package and they provide hours of fun. I bought them along with a little notepad for my 2-year-old son to use on a long plane ride and he really enjoyed pulling them off the backing and sticking them onto the notebook pages.

They're thick enough for little fingers to grasp and and they stick very well but can also be peeled up and moved to a different surface. The goal of the game is to find the objects on your cards. To play, each player takes five cards and tries to locate various roadside objects. Every time a player finds an object, they yell it out and show the card to the other players. If everyone agrees the object has been found, the player places the card into their discard pile and selects another card from the top of the deck.

The first player to discard 10 cards wins. My 8-year-old used to complain about being bored in the car. After we get tired of telling her to look out the window, we usually hand her the iPad to keep herself entertained. But now we have this awesome game! We keep it in the back seat and play any time our car trips last more than 30 minutes or so. We usually pair up so the driver can play too. We all end up laughing and being silly Even my year-old enjoys playing!

I wish there was an expansion pack. Promising review: "Airplane sanity saver. Perfect size for a child-size backpack. We used this to keep our 5-year-old occupied on a flight. She used it for 1. The markers snap into place and we used the 'lock' for the airplane seat tray to hold it in place. Great buy. Part of me hates that I'm too lazy to just be that Pinterest mom who throws together markers we already own and paper in a cute way, but let's be real, if I'm prepping for a trip with three kids that is exactly the last thing I feel like doing.

This is easy, premade, at just the right just-slightly-overpriced price point, and convenient. It has a good variety of marker colors, in perfectly tiny-hand sizes, and stores them securely in place in a way you couldn't easily engineer your PinterestFail into doing.

The case has a handle for carrying and snaps to keep it closed. It's sturdy but light weight, and flat enough not to take up your entire carry-on bag. Honestly, I price shopped 'travel'-type pencil boxes for other activities: They are not cheap, and they are a lot thicker.

Always a great throw-in for a trip to keep little people occupied; guess that's how I always end up buying more. Promising review: " Perfect for restaurants and travel. I was hesitant to buy these, since they seemed so pricey for such small toys. I finally bought it to help entertain my 2-year-old in restaurants on vacation, and I'm so glad that I did.

They are really fun little magnet toys, and they are the perfect size to travel with and to keep in a backpack or diaper bag. I did some research on the company, and the highish price is due to the fact that they actually pay a fair wage and do community building.

That's the kind of company I don't mind supporting. This toy will be a big help on our upcoming plane flight. It's also been an addictive game for the grown-ups to fiddle with. We might need to buy another set. Promising review: "Super cute. Great for travel. Perfect for vacations, car rides, plane rides, etc. A little messy with the black shavings but an easy cleanup! Promising review: " We bought this pad to take on a long car trip with our 4-year- old granddaughter.

She is usually traveling with her nose stuck to an iPad, I was looking for something to get her out of watching iPad all trip. This did the trick! She drew all kinds of things, practiced her numbers and letters, and played games with me. Promising review: "I was doubtful that my 5-year-old would like this, but took a chance.

It took him a little bit to figure out how to push the balls around, but once he got the hang of it he didn't put it down for days. It was perfect for our car trip. Great purchase! Each person takes five cards and tries to locate various roadside objects. In addition, several funny cards can pop up and encourage kids to use all their travel senses by listening for sounds, feeling around for bumps, and sniffing for scents.

Great for two or more players, ages seven and up. Reusable Games. The activity book comes with two dry-erase markers that include erasers on the end, making it easy for kids to try and try again their hand at the several games and challenges inside the book. Designed for ages six and up, we like that the reusable book and markers can be enjoyed by a child traveling on their own or by two kids at the same time.

The magnetic board game and magnetic pieces come with everything kids need to play chess, checkers, backgammon, and dominoes. A deck of playing cards is also included, giving kids even more playing options. The lightweight and compact set, which once folded measures 9. Great for kids of all ages, Wikki Stix are colorful and waxy bendable sticks that kids can use to make countless creations. Packaged in a travel-friendly plastic case, the set includes wiki sticks in primary and neon colors, as well as a page idea booklet.

Wikki Stix are made with non-toxic food-grade wax and hand-knitting yarn, making them a safe product to use by little ones. For a travel activity that will challenge kids and provide ample opportunity to work on their fine motor skills, problem-solving skills, cognitive abilities and color and shape recognition, we like the Coogam Travel Tangram Puzzle.

A tangram is a puzzle consisting of seven pieces that users must put together in order to form shapes. Both the booklet and tans are magnetic, making it easy for kids to contain their pieces while solving the puzzles. The booklet comes with patterns and solutions to challenge kids ages three and above.

The Hasbro classic is fun for kids ages five and up and features a small board with 16 peg pieces that stick into the board, making it ideal for use while traveling. Each deck has colorful cards with fun illustrations that young kids will enjoy. The set includes games that are appropriate for users as young as three and for older kids. We also like that because all of the decks come in their own box, parents can give the set to their kids all at once or keep some cards on hand as a backup for when boredom gets to an all-time high while traveling.

The award-winning game challenges players to complete puzzles that work on skills like problem-solving, cognition, and patterns. The game comes with a booklet that features challenges of varying degrees of difficulty and players can also go online to download even more challenges from the SmartGames app.

Lightweight with a small footprint, the gameboard folds into itself to keep all the pieces contained when not in use.