25+ Family Fun Road Trip Activities And Games To Make The Hours Fly By!

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by Robin

So you’re looking for fun road trip activities for kids? How are you feeling about the impending time in the car? I hope you’re looking forward to it, but chances are there’s a little bit of dread. We’re here to help with this collection of fun road trip games, low mess crafts for the car, activity books that use their brains – and take up time!

You can often find my family and I piled into the car driving places and over the years we’ve cultivated ideas to make the time pass with more laughter and less complaining.

Have you checked out our Family Road Trip Survival Guide? It’s got some great tips that will help your trip planning.

I know you have so much to do to prepare for your trip – and sometimes you just want it all in one place – and get it off your to-do list.

That’s what I’ve got for you here. With this list, you can safely add some well-thought-out things to your online cart and know that in a few days you’ll have great fun road trip activities for kids that will keep them entertained for hours.

What are some fun things to do on a road trip? Keep reading – we’ve got your back here!

Family Fun Road Trip Activities and Games to Make the Hours Fly By

Low Mess Car Crafts

THIS is our family’s favourite way to spend time. Nothing makes time fly for kids faster than making things. They can get into a creative zone and the miles can pass unnoticed!

These window Markers – hands down this is our kids’ favourite. Each morning we’d get them to clean their window off to make room for that days’ creation!
Twistable Coloured Pencils The drawback to pencil crayons in the car is the need for sharpening them. No one wants to clean pencil shavings from inside the car when you finally arrive. These Twistables make sharpening pencils no mess and easy enough for kids to do on their own!
Don’t forget spiralbound, hardcovered sketchbooks! These are easiest to use in the car.
Aluminum Foil Think of this like playdoh for the car! Aluminum foil is maleable and can be shaped into fabulous creations! Our kids made hats and jewellery and more. Just tear off sheets and hand it back to them – just to avoid accidental cuts from the packaging. We brought clear tape too for extra creative fodder.
Pipe Cleaners Another no mess sculpting craft!
Water colouring books and Water activity books Our kids LOVED these when they were toddlers. Great to have on hand for long waits anywhere with little ones. I used to keep one in my purse for waiting room distractions.
Reusable Sticker Pads Sticker books that you can reposition can stimulate creative play – and can be used over and over!

Car Games for Kids (and Adults) That Are Actually Fun

I Spy Road Game – We play this one as a team – but it can be competitive if that works best for your family! This one’s great – it’s also a traditional deck of cards – so, even more play options in one package.
This Rubberneckers game looks really fun – and gets great reviews for adults and kids together! I just ordered it and can’t wait to try it out.
Tangram Travel Games 360 Magnetic Puzzles and Questions Reviewers describe the magnets as really strong and their kids love the puzzles. Kids get absorbed in the puzzles – which is totally the goal!
This set of 12 Travel Sized Board Games is really affordable. The reviews are so-so, but for the price I think you’d get quite a few hours of entertainment for a steal.
Travel Scavenger Hunt Card Game Gets great reviews – sounds like it’s best for driving through more populated areas.
Travel Bingo! This one turns the classic scavenger hunt into a bingo game. I love that it has the little sliding doors!
Hasbro has travel versions of many of their popular games. We’ve started buying them instead of the larger version for flexibility and they’re smaller to store:

Brainy (and Time-Consuming) Car Activities & Books

Best of MadLibs or MadLibs on the Road THIS! Madlibs are our absolute favourite way to eat up time on the road – we usually end up crying laughing. We STILL laugh about funny stories we made years ago. Sure, there will be lots of butt and poop jokes – but secretly they’ll also be learning about adverbs and adjectives!
Where’s Waldo? The Totally Essential Travel Collection We’ve had this one for YEARS and we don’t tire of it. Dozens and dozens of hours of enjoyment.
Ultimate Sticker Puzzles: License Plates Across the States: Travel Puzzles and Games Who doesn’t love sticker books?! Lots of reviewers got one of these for each of their kids and reported hours of happy entertainment.
Laugh-Out-Loud Road Trip Jokes for Kids Can’t vouch for the jokes in this one – but reviewers like it a lot for kids.
National Geographic Kids Ultimate U.S. Road Trip Atlas: Maps, Games, Activities, and More for Hours of Backseat Fun This one gets universally great reviews!

Audiobooks Make the Drive Fly By

I am a huge fan of audiobooks. I use them all the time to make my commute, workouts and housework fly by. There’s something magical about getting absorbed in a book and time passing unnoticed.

Your library probably has free audiobooks that you can download to your devices – be sure to check that out.

There are some books you just can’t get from your library so look into Audible. New members can get 2 free audiobooks – you can start the free trial and cancel it before the 30 days is up!