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Written by: EmmaKay on April 10, 2012.

A road trip can be a great adventure. It’s also the perfect opportunity to spend some quality family time. Of course, it’s hard to keep sight of this when you have two children simultaneously relaying a chorus of ‘are we there yet?’ in the back of the car. But it doesn’t have to be the stressful experience that many people will recognise and recoil at the sound of. Here’s just a few of some of the top game you can play whilst on a road trip: no cards, small pieces or chunky playing boards to contend with…

  • ‘Once upon a time’. This story-telling game is a good chance to be creative, and evoke a few laughs. Get each person in the car to come up with one line of a story, beginning with ‘once upon a time’, and the subsequent person has to think of what comes next. Get ready to hear lots of amazing anecdotes… ‘once upon a time, a pink giraffe went to the supermarket…’
  • Speaking of supermarkets, another option is the ‘grocery store’ game. Some may remember playing this at primary school. Starting with the first person who retells their tale of ‘I went to the grocery store’, this game goes round in a circle, with the list of groceries getting higher and higher. The aim is to remember the grocery listed before you, and the one before that etc. The game ends when the list has become too long to be remembered!
  • ‘I Spy’ is a classic game, which should not and can not be left off this list! We all know how it goes, and whilst it may be amazingly simple, its simplicity can provide even an hour or so of easy game playing. It is generally played with giving the clue of the first letter of an object, or by describing the object being spied on. One way of making the game more interesting is to have banned words-perhaps simple colours and shapes, for example- that the spy cannot use to describe their object.
  • Twenty questions is another classic. Someone will choose an object, and the other players take a turn to ask a question about it, e.g. ‘is it bigger than a tree?’ The person answering the questions can only reply with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.
  • Lastly, we have ‘rock, paper, scissors’. Yep, another one that we all know- but we know it for a reason. This is a great idea for kids to play in the back of the car by themselves, if you want to keep them occupied for a while. Just make sure the metaphorical battle between rocks and scissors doesn’t get too lively!

These are just a few of the many, many games you could play on a long car journey- with children, or without! A car journey can be a part of the holiday in itself, and doesn’t have to be just a means to an end. But when you are spending a long time in the car to get to a destination, you are probably hoping for a fantastic holiday experience. To make sure this is what you get, why not try a self catered holiday rental. In a holiday home rental you will get more independence, generally better value for money, and you don’t usually have to share facilities- so the family fun can continue from the car seat to the front door of your very own holiday property.