ALL OF THAT TO SAY...we are the master road trippers. I just wanted to hop on here really quick and share with you our two favorite road trip games. We play them pretty much every time we travel past Tampa (about 2 hours away), and they keep us entertained for at least a portion of the trip.
First is the license plate game. This is about as easy as it comes. We first played this game when my parents used to put us in the car and transport us from Fort Myers, FL to Detroit, MI every summer as kids. My grandma used to pay us 10 cents for every state and 25 cents for every Providence. This used to keep us entertained and keep us from asking "Are we there yet?" over and over again on that fun 24 hour drive.
The Breakdown: We open up a new page in our notes app and we try to find all 50 states (and a bonus for any Canadian Providences). I think the most we got in one trip was 36. Try and beat us. Make sure you check the big trucks because sometimes they have more than one plate on them. For this game, we always work together. This past weekend, my parents were going to our cabin in GA while we were TN bound. Josh & I raced my brother and sister to see who could find more on our trips. In case you were wondering, they beat us by 1 state.
Second is the ABC game. This is another easy game that takes no supplies and just alert eyes. I would tell you that I win every time, but Josh would tell you I'm a liar. Basically, you start at A and try to find a word that starts with the letter "A". Think eye spy but going through the letters of the alphabet A-Z. If you want to play again, start with the other person the next time so that you have to find the opposite letters.
A couple rules we play by (adjust as needed):
1. The word must be outside of the car
2. You cannot find two words on the same sign (So if a business is called Apples Bananas, it will only count for Apples. The person with the letter "B" will have to find another one)
3. Sometimes we let it slide for hard letters like X, Q, and Z to find it on a license plate. If this is the case, my sister (the stickler of the group) always made it be the first letter on the license plate to make it a little more challenging.
4. Abbreviations don't count. So the Q in DQ doesn't count. It would have to be Dairy Queen to count as a Q.
A few hints:
* Look for car makes and models
* Look for names of restaurants on interstate signs
* Look on bumper stickers
* Look for X on a Nissan Xterra
* Look for Q on a Dairy Queen, La Quinta, or Quality Inn & Suites
* Look for Z on a Zoo sign or a Zaxby's
The other thing we love to do to make road trips pass a little quicker is to have a really good playlist. Josh thinks that a really good playlist includes ALL the genres and ALL decades of music. Throw in some old stuff & new stuff. Add some country, pop, hip hop, R&B, blues, and rap. Add your favorite songs from when you were a kid and maybe add some brand new songs. Add something to sing along to, and something to bring back sweet memories. If you are traveling with your love, play "your song" or the song you danced to at your wedding. Keeping the songs random like this will keep you talking about/laughing at/reminiscing on the playlist and the lyrics and less about how many miles you've traveled in the last hour.
How do you pass the time on a roadtrip?
Tell us in the comments below,
J&H
