Car Ride Games - Part 3

            We continue our list of car ride games this week with four more ideas for passing the time while on those long road trips this season.

1.)  License Plates (#2) – There are many versions and variations  of license plate games depending on the difficulty and age group of those playing. 1^St: Participants call out letters in alphabetical order; the first one to Z gets a point. The player with the most points by the end of the day/trip wins. For a greater challenge look for double or triple letters.

Variation: Use the letters in the plate to create a word. For example the letters CBE can spell celebrate. Where the first letter is the starting letter of the word, the last letter is the last letter, and the middle letter is any letter in between the final word.

2.)  20 questions – One Person acts as a judge and chooses one random object, it can be anything. Go around the car asking the judge yes or no questions about their object. The first question is always “Is it an Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, or Other?” If the guessers fail to guess the judge's object in 20 questions they all get one last guess. If the object is still not guessed then it is revealed and a new judge is selected for the next round.

3.)  Find the Alphabet – Utilize any reading material outside of your side of the car to call out the letters of the alphabet in order. Roadsigns, store names, logos on trucks, ect. should all be utilized. This game can be played in teams or as solo players.

4.)  Billboard Haikus – Each round one player chooses three random words from three different billboards. Once all three words have been chosen the other players have one minute  to create a haiku. That is, a three lined poem with 5 syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third line.

5.)  Road Trip Bingo – This game is played much like a combination of Bingo and I Spy.  Create a list of objects (street signs, fire hydrants, traffic lights, garbage cans, ect.) and randomly assign them to different boxes on multiple cards. Hand the cards out to all the participants. Whenever someone sees the listed object on their card they can cross if out. First player to cross out an entire row calls out BINGO! and wins.

Car Ride Games - Part 1

            Long rides in the car can vary within a large spectrum of  entertaining and exciting to painfully dull. The accompanying passengers, final destination, and length of the journey can all play a factor in quality of the ride. Provided below are a list of some popular road trip games to help pass the time.

1.)  Color Hunt – At the beginning of the trip each player chooses an uncommon type of color ( pink, yellow, orange, purple, ect.).  To avoid confusion try to avoid some of the odd or ambiguous colors such as scarlet or lavender. Throughout the trip players keep track of how many cars they see painted the color they have chosen and receive a point for each one.

ALTERNATE RULES 1: Players can steal points from one another if they spot and call a car of another passengers color.

ALTERNATE RULES 2:  One person chooses a color. The other passengers continuously count out loud each time they see a car (or object) of that color. Whomever counts the 10^th / 20^th / or any other predetermined number wins!

2.)  Secret License Plate Message - Pretend  each license plate contains a secret message and try to decipher it. For example  “ETE 830” could stand for “Elephant Tamer Enthusiast 8 days a week 30 hours a day.”

3.)   Fortunately, Unfortunately: One passenger shares a statement beginning with the word, “fortunately.” Another passenger then follows the statement with the word “Unfortunately.” For example one passenger might start by saying “Fortunately, I packed everyone lunch before we left.” and another might follow up with “Unfortunately, a bear broke into the house and ate all of it.” Have fun with the phrases and try making up some absurd combinations.

4.)  Buzz Word – At the start of the trip determine a word or a mixture of words that will be forbidden for the remainder of the trip. (Choose common words such as “Mom” or “Dad”, the more common the word the more difficult and entertaining the game becomes.)

ADDITIONAL RULE: Hand out 10 paper clips or other markers to each player. Whenever someone says a Buzz Word, the first player to exclaims “BUZZ!”  gets to take a paperclip (or marker) from the offender.  

That's all for now. Check in later when we continue our list of automotive entertainment.