5 Best Car Games for Long Rides

Don't let the miles wear you out

Even with the most high-tech entertainment equipment, long rides can start to drag for little ones. Luckily, there are many games you can play on the road to while away the hours and keep everyone's spirits up. Most of the time, even the driver can join in. Here are some of the best:

1) I Spy. The classic game of automotive entertainment. A passenger selects an object they can see, in the car or on the road, and says, "I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with..." and then the first letter of the object. The other passengers take turns guessing, and the winner gets to start the next round. Careful, though - as children get older, this game gets ever more fiendishly cunning, as they begin to develop the art of looking in a different direction from the object they've selected.

2) Who Am I? Pick a celebrity, and encourage passengers to guess who you are by asking only yes or no questions. You might have to tailor your choices to make sure the youngest passengers have a chance of guessing. For extra fun and points, you can have a bash at impersonating your celebrity.

3) Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. This famous guessing game takes a similar format but broader view than impersonating celebrities. Try to guess the object the player is thinking of in 20 questions or fewer, starting with only whether it's an animal, vegetable, or mineral. This game can be educational as well as fun, as it teaches younger players to think about the physical properties of their chosen object.

4) Counting games. Simple, but good for keeping people's attention focused on the world beyond the car. Passengers choose a single color each and count how many cars they see of that color. The person who counts the most cars in an hour wins. This is best used alongside one of the other games so players are counting cars while guessing celebrities or objects. 

5) I Went to the Supermarket. One player starts off by saying, for example: "I went to the supermarket and I bought a chicken." The next player picks this up with "I went to the supermarket and I bought a chicken and...some bananas." Play continues between passengers, adding an item to the list each turn until someone forgets the sequence or you arrive at your destination. It's a great memory-training game, and you can throw in the most surreal items to your shopping list to keep older players interested.