Keeping the kids occupied and happy on long road trips is one of the best ways to keep the whole family relaxed and make the time fly. You’ll soon realize these road trip games for kids listed below will occupy their young minds and keep them contented so you can relax and enjoy the trip.

Road Trip Game #1 – Eagle Eyes

This is a game of spotting items out of the car window that are listed on the sheet and counting their occurrences. Each player would choose a side of the car to look for the agreed items. The one with the most occurrences within a certain time period or distance is the winner. All you need is a pen and paper for each player. Items such as cows, horses, farm silos, tractors, churches, cemeteries, farm dams and road signs are good starters.

Variations – to add extra spice each child could try and predict how many of each item they will see within a certain distance or time frame. The closest to their prediction wins.

Road Trip Game #2 – Connect the Boxes

Each child will need a pen a paper. One player will draw a grid of dots (say 30 dots wide by 10 rows deep so that the width between the dots and the rows is about equal). Each player, in turns, then connects 2 dots with a horizontal or vertical line. The aim is to be the player that closes the 4th side to complete a box. The winner is the player who closes the most boxes. (Hint: If you close in 3 sides you can be pretty sure your opponent will quickly complete the box and add his/her initial in the center.)

Road Trip Game #3 - Car Make / Model Reversii

This will have the whole car in fits of laughter...guaranteed! If you see a Cadillac Eldorado (for instance) whiz past the players try and quickly say the make and model spelled BACKWARDS. So for this example the kids will be trying to say "Callidac" (Cadillac spelled backwards) and the pronunciation would be something like Call-i-dac. Then for the model Odarodle (Eldorado spelled backwards) they would try to say O-dar-odle. Once people are trying to say these words quickly, as other cars zoom past, it quickly turns into a real laugh... you’ll remember this game for years. (I don’t know of anyone else who has played this game apart from our family – so you could say it’s exclusive.)

Road Trip Game #4 – License Plate Spotter

On a piece of paper each player writes all the letters of the alphabet A- Z. Then the idea is to find the first digit on the number plate to match each letter on your list. The first to find all the letters is the winner. (You could slow things down a little, making the game last longer, by choosing a certain color number plate or a certain state etc)

Road Trip Game #5 – I Spy

This works well for younger kids especially. Take turns to look for something the other player(s) has to guess correctly. You begin your turn by saying "I spy with my little eye something beginning with a (letter)_____". The other player tries to guess it from the surrounding items or countryside. The person who correctly guesses gets to have the next turn.

Have a great road trip.