The Best Travel Games for Kids

Especially for young children, a travel goodie bag can be a lifesaver. No matter what age your children are, you can pack a bag of treats and surprises that can rescue your day when things get testy in the car.

The first trick is to keep the contents of the bag a secret. Children generally love surprises, and if you can pull new and interesting things from your bag, you will be a hero. You will also distract the youngsters from whatever annoying behavior they had been doing.

What to put in the bag? That depends a lot on the ages of the children. Small, handheld toys that don't make much noise are always good. Markers or colored pencils with paper, puzzle books, or even travel-sized games are nice for older children. New (or at least less familiar) books can help. And don't forget age-appropriate and car appropriate snacks.

You can shop for your goodie bag in dollar stores and discount stores to save money. Some families also watch which toys are shoved aside after the first excitement of Christmas or birthday, hide those away and pull them back out for activities such as this. Check the local thrift shop, too, for new-to-you ideas. You can also find coloring and puzzle pages for free on the internet. Make sure to throw in a few essentials, like sharpened pencils, erasers, extra paper, and so forth, and you're all set.

When the kids get testy, grab your goodie bag and dole out a new surprise. Or, if you wish, use the goodie bag as a reward for stellar behavior for whatever length of time you feel appropriate, as in "If you can behave until we reach Podunkin, I'll get you a surprise out of my bag of treats." Either way, you'll have an arsenal of supplies to keep the kids entertained throughout the trip.

One, Two, Jellyfish!

Here's a counting game with a twist! Choose a number that is not a factor of the number of players. (Don't choose 2 if you have an even number of players, or five if you have five players, etc.). Now, have everyone count off in turn. BUT, when you reach a multiple of your chosen number, that player must say "jellyfish" instead of the number. So if your chosen number is three, the counting would go, "One, two, jellyfish, four, five, jellyfish, seven, eight, jellyfish, ten..." The faster you go, the tougher it gets! When someone makes a mistake, that person can be "out" or have to pay a penalty, like sing a goofy song. Make the game tougher by using larger jellyfish numbers, like twelve or twenty-two. You can also declare any number containing your chosen number to be jellyfish. For example, if you choose three, you would jellyfish not only the multiples, but also numbers like thirteen and twenty-three and ALL of the thirties!

This game is loads of fun, and it's also great practice for multiplication and division concepts. Try it out on your next trip!

-> LICENSE PLATE MATH
Pick a number from 1 to 100. Jot down the numbers from the next license plate you see and make a number sentence from them. Use any sort of math you know (the four operations, exponents, decimals, fractions, parentheses, whatever!) and try to make a number sentence that totals as close as possible to your target number.

-> LICENSE PRIMES
Jot down the numbers on a license plate and try to prime factor the number. Calculators permitted if all agree!

-> LICENSE WORDS
Jot down the letters in the first plate you see and try to make the shortest word that uses all of them in order. Give 5 points for any additional consonants, 2 points for each additional vowel, and 10 points for each additional word! Person with the lowest score wins.

Try some of these games:

-->"I'm Going on a Picnic":

This memory game can not only occupy the young ones, it also will build essential school skills. Start off with a sentence, such as the title, or "I'm going to the zoo and I saw" or "I'm going on vacation and I packed...". Now take turns listing items. The first player just adds to the list. From then on, everyone must recite what has come before and add something new! Make the game more complex by using words in ABC order (like apple, ball, cat, and doughnut).

--> Roadside Bingo:

Make a few Bingo cards in advance with pictures or words for common roadside sights, like barn, fence, dog, streetlight, traffic light, stop sign. Put the items in different places on each card. As the kids travel, have them color, mark or cover the things they see. Want the game to last longer? Make a rule that the winner is the first to cover the entire card!