What are the best road trip activities for kids?

Family road trips create such amazing memories! Your kids are at an age where they can play games independently, together, or all together as a family. One thing to take into account is whether or not your kids are prone to motion sickness. If motion sickness is a problem, then activities like colouring in, looking at picture books, or even watching movies or playing games on a tablet might be difficult.

If both of your kids have a firm grasp of the alphabet, then "I Spy" is a classic game that can be played by the whole family. If your younger child has not yet mastered their letters, you can play the game using colours or shapes. Counting cars of a certain colour or type (such as trucks or SUV's) can also help the time to pass.

If your kid's tablets have a map application, they can do some basic navigating and check off way-points as you pass them. A road-trip scavenger hunt is also great fun. You can make a list of things to look for on your trip (for example, a green car, a red road-sign, a big rock, an 18-wheeler, a camper van, a deer if you're going into a nature area etc.) and your kids can keep an eye out for them as you go along.

If you don't already have them, back seat organisers clip onto the front seat and can be used to store magnetic board games, books, coloring books and pencils, and other small items.

Have a great trip!

We played the license plate game the whole way across the country and it was awesome. It's just a great ongoing game. You have to write down all of the states and fined every state. Who ever calls it first, gets points. One point for close States, and 20 points for the furthest away. Anything in the middle is 5. It's a fun game that helps with learning about geography. If you're in another country in Europe, say, you can do that with other countries plates or flags.

My kids have always loved coloring in the car and audiobooks are great too. A stable table tray to sit on their lap is so useful instead of trying to balance things on their laps. Ipads are great when they start to struggle but we always try to save those for further into the trip.

Ooh I wanted to ask this question too! lol. We have car songs that we sing along but they don't last for very long. We also have a 'car trip bag' that is only used on car trips that has wooden fidget toys, wooden puzzles and sensory popper toys for busy fingers. Very keen to hear more ideas too!

Some of my most favorite childhood memories are our family road trips, and the games my older brother and I would play! Many of them were the ones passed down through the years, and others were ones we made up ourselves. Thanks for the memories!

There is a really fun book available for the ages of your kids, with tons of games for just them, and for the whole family -- "The Best Ever Backseat Games." There are also scavenger hunt card decks which are fairly easy for younger ones, having them find someone walking a dog, or a red motorcycle.

Magnetic games are easy to play and fun, as are paint-by-sticker books. Your kids could make their own book of blank pages, and fill the pages with all their road trip adventures, making a travel scrapbook.

If you have not already heard of it, the Barefoot World Atlas app is a really neat way for the kids to use their tablets and explore the world from their car.

Have fun and safe travels!