10 Amazing Road Trip Activities for Your Family
Looking for ways to keep your kids occupied on a long car ride? You need to try these 10 technology-free, family-friendly road trip activities (with free printables!).
I have four younger siblings and when I was little, we drove everywhere. In fact, to this day we have still never been on a plane together. We would drive 10 hours from Georgia to Indiana a few times a year to visit our grandparents. So needless to say, my parents soon became experts at entertaining us on the long car rides.
I have many fond memories of road-tripping with my family, and in this post I’ll tell you how to make good memories for your children, too. Read on for a list of 10 fun things to do on a road trip . . . and no, none of them involve TV or video games! In fact, many of them encourage kids to focus on their surroundings and enjoy seeing new places fly by.
I’ve organized the road trip activities in two groups: activities for children who can read and activities for children of all ages. And there is also a little booklet with road trip activity printables. You can access it right away if you sign up for my newsletter!
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Road Trip Activities for Children Who Can Read
1. Look for license plates from different states and provinces.
One of my very favorite road trip activities for years was watching for license plates and trying to see a car from each of the 50 US states. Print out a blank map of the United States for each of your children (one is available in my printable booklet). Then when they spot a license plate from a certain state, they can color in that state on their map.
My siblings and I took this game very seriously. We would get excited whenever we saw a tractor trailer or a camper, since they tended to travel long distance and hence have more interesting places of origin. At times we even pulled out binoculars to read far-away license plates. Soon we were experts on all the different state logos and designs.
I have included a map of Canada in the booklet, too, since you can spot quite a few cars from Canadian provinces on the roads in the US. Also watch out for Mexican states and “special” license plates for various government officials.
Pro Tip: If you are mostly traveling within a single state, then ask your children to keep track of the different counties.
An added benefit to this activity is that your children will get a lot better at identifying US states on a map. Our license plate obsession is one of the reasons my siblings and I can all easily label every US state. In the beginning you may have to look up which state or province goes where, though!
2. Play the ABC game with road signs.
This is a simple game, but one that can keep children entertained for a while. The rules are easy: spot a word on a road sign beginning with A, then one beginning with B, and so forth through the entire alphabet. You can do it all together as a family and even children who are just learning to read can participate.
If this version becomes boring, try going through the alphabet backwards. That is, first find a word that begins with Z, then Y, etc. You can also try words ending with each letter of the alphabet, although you may get stuck on Q.
I love this game because it encourages everyone to look out their windows and focus on their surroundings. You will learn more about city names and road names, too.
3. Count all the different hotels.
When I was a child, my siblings and I would keep track of all the different hotels. As we drove along, we watched for billboards and signs and eagerly wrote down each new company name. This may sound boring, but it is surprisingly thrilling. Sure, you see a lot of Marriotts and Hamptons, but you also come across little inns and bed-and-breakfasts with cool names.
To this day, I remember how excited I was by a place in Texas called the Laughing Horse Lodge. So don’t underestimate how much fun it can be to write down all the unique names.
Road Trip Activities for Children of All Ages
4. Play Horse Cow Tractor.
This game is another personal favorite of mine. Different animals and objects are worth different amounts:
- Horse: 1 point
- Cow: 1 point
- Tractor: 5 points
- Cemetery: -15 points
Divide everyone into two teams based on what side of the car they are sitting on. Each team will try to see the most possible horses, cows, and tractors on their own side of the road, and they will try to find cemeteries on the other team’s side of the road. You can add other objects to the game, too, if you want – we often made water towers worth 5 points.
The printable booklet contains a Horse Cow Tractor scoresheet!
5. Listen to audiobooks.
Choose a few audiobooks that appeal to the whole family and keep everyone entertained for hours. If you can’t find audiobooks, someone can also read a paper book out loud. My mom would often read to us while my dad drove and vice versa. Here is a list of some of our family favorites:
- The Freddy books by Walter R. Brooks (about talking animals and their adventures in upstate New York); you can start with Freddy the Detective
- Any of Beverly Cleary’s books about children’s escapades; you can start with Henry Huggins or Beezus & Ramona
- The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (about pioneer life)
- The Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo (about a school for children with special abilities)
When we started getting a bit older, we added Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings to our list.
The links above lead to the paper versions of the books on Bookshop, but you can also purchase the audiobooks on Libro.fm (and download them to your phone). Libro.fm partners with Bookshop to support your local bookstores; you can read more about their mission here.
6. Make a playlist and sing along.
Download some fun music and have fun singing your hearts out. If your children are really little, they might enjoy the Wee Sing series (now available via iTunes!). My siblings and I loved Wee Sing Dinosaurs and Wee Sing America when we were young.
As a last resort, you can always sing 99 Bottles of Beer. This counting song used to drive my dad crazy as he tried to focus on the road, but my siblings and I sure loved singing it at the top of our lungs. If you don’t want your children singing about alcohol, then try replacing “beer” with “milk” or some other beverage.
7. Play I Spy (with a twist!).
Ask your kids to look for certain items on the side of the road or on the road: hay bales, windmills, mail trucks, etc. In my printable booklet, you will find a sheet with images of 21 items to find. Tell your children to circle items as they go and see if they can find all 21!
8. Brighten up your road trip with coloring pages.
Bring a coloring book along for each of your children. Or you can print individual coloring pages out and put them on a clipboard. You can find free printable pages of all kinds on Crayola.com and supercoloring.com, among other places.
Ask your children what kinds of pictures they want to color and prepare a stache to bring out when road trip meltdowns threaten. And don’t forget to bring crayons, colored pencils, or markers along!
9. Play the memory game.
Choose a topic – animals, countries, cities, etc. Let’s say you chose animals. Player 1 names an animal beginning with A (for example, aardvark), and then Player 2 repeats the A animal and adds an animal beginning with B (for example, bison). Then Player 3 says “Aardvark, bison” before adding an animal beginning with C.
You go around and around in a circle with each player repeating all the previous animals and adding a new one. Players are knocked out as they are unable to keep listing the animals anymore. The player with the best memory wins.
10. Stop for breaks on your road trip and take mini-walks.
This tenth activity is a reminder that we all need a break sometimes. If your kids are extremely restless and grumpy, maybe it is time to pull off the road and have a mini-adventure. Try to find a rest area or a pretty park to stroll around in. If all else fails, even going into a gas station to use the restroom can be exciting when you are little.
You can spice things up by asking your children to join you in a brief exercise routine outside the car. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. A few jumping jacks, touching your toes, and wind-milling your arms can make people of all ages feel a lot better.
Road Trip Activities: Printables
And now, the promised printables. The packet contains four pages:
- A blank map of the US with state borders indicated
- A blank map of Canada with province borders indicated
- Horse Cow Tractor Scoresheet
- Road Trip I Spy
Print out a copy for each of your children and watch them have fun on the road trip! You can download the booklet right away if you subscribe to my newsletter.
I hope you liked my suggestions for fun things to do on a road trip. What are your favorite family road trip activities?
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Great list! I used to love playing the license plate game on my family road trips when I was a kid. I still remember how excited we were when we saw a Hawaii license plate and wondered how it got off the islands of Hawaii!
I’m glad you like the list! Yes, Hawaii license plates are the best – we always got very excited about them, too 🙂