Summer is here! And we’ve got you covered with a diy portable road trip kit including 10 printable activity pages for your kids to keep them busy on those long road trip drives. This pack is chock full of super fun activities and games to help keep boredom at bay and keep parents sane while everyone’s stuck in the car.
Each game and activity requires minimal supplies. You can get by with as little or as many supplies as you’d like. You could literally just have the prints laminated and a dry erase marker and call it good. Or add things like stickers, playdough and skittles to mix it up a bit. Keep reading for our favorite car ride games and activities…
*Click here to download the printable road trip kit!
[Thanks for supporting us and helping us grow this little blog. Your support makes it possible for us to continue sharing and creating printables! We no longer offer the activity kits for free, but they’re super discounted in our Etsy shop so we can grow this blog a little faster. We appreciate your understanding.]
The cover includes 6 different colors so your child can choose their favorite and helps when you have multiple kids. Tape it to the top inside of the storage case. The storage case is nice and big to hold everything and is great for kids to write on. We got ours from Walmart, but there’s a similar version here on Amazon. It’s 12×12″ and fits the papers and other supplies/toys. It has a large writing surface and sits on the lap perfectly.
This license plate game is a classic and is great when you’re going on a loooong road trip across multiple states. It’s hard to keep track of all the different state license plates you’ve seen, but with this printable you just add a sticker or mark it off and see how many states you found by the end of the trip. Make it more competitive and tell the kids there’s a prize for whoever found the most. Or the whole family can play together!
Our family LOVES the alpahbet game and we play it often, even on short drives. To play you have to find a word outside of the car that starts with the letter A and work your way down the alphabet. For older kids, do the letters in order and the word has to begin with that letter. For younger kids, we allow them to find any words that have the letter in it. We also determine before the game starts if there’s going to be one or two passes allowed (meaning if you’re stuck on a letter for a while then you can skip it for later).
We love playing the food signs scavenger hunt game and tried to get food places that are scattered all over the USA. We also included a blank sheet for those of you outside the United States. The kids have to find the fast food places as we drive. We let the winner pick where we get to eat for dinner or lunch that day! Makes it a little more competitive and fun.
Seeing a slug bug on the road (aka Volkswagen Beetle) is so rare nowadays! That’s probably why kids now scream “yellow car” and then punch their sibling in the arm. With this game I can assure you there will be no punching involved and all colors are equally important and needed to win the game. To play the car search game kids put a check mark each time they find the car color on their activity sheet. No using the same car twice!
This is just like the traditional Scattergories game, but without all the bells and whistles. The full instructions are on the printable with two ways to play and a large list of categories to choose from ranging from animals to Pro Sports Teams to Disney Movie Characters. This is fun for adults to get involved in as well! We love playing this Scattergories on the go game as a family.
Dots and boxes is an easy game for 2+ players. Each player needs a washable marker and takes turns making a line from dot to dot. The key is to not create an opportunity for the other player(s) to create a box. If you can make a box you get to write your initial and go again, sometimes getting mulitple boxes (especially towards the end of the game). Once every line is drawn and boxes filled in, count them up and see who has the most!
This road sign scavenger hunt is a fun and easy game that’s perfect for little and big kids. Just like the license plate game, give it a competitive twist by giving the winner a prize. You could also do the raod signs scavenger hunt as a family activity while traveling in the car together. Help your kids learn the road signs during this scavenger hunt!
Next up is another classic game. Tic tac toe is a family favorite game. We love a reusable tic-tac-toe game board you can use all the time. You can use markers or little candies to play…we always opt for the candies. 🙂 We love to play multiple games and play best out of 3, 6, or 9 tic tac toe games.
Last, but definitely not least, is a printable playdough mat of the USA! We love playdough mats and have other ones that you can print off and include in your road trip kit. This playdough mat is specifically for the United States (we’ll eventually include other countries and will link them when they are created) and can be used in multiple ways. First up is to sculpt out each state and cover the entire map. Second is to track your destination and what cities you’ve stopped in. This is great for a multiple stop/destination road trip. And third, use it to test your state name knowledge then your capital name knowledge. Parents will appreciate this as it helps keep those brain muscles working!
Use the USA playdough mat for more than playdough. Have the kids learn the states and also the state capitals. Take a dry erase marker and they can practice filling in the states to see how many they remember. Once they conquer the states, move on to the capitals of each state.
And there you have it; a self-contained, portable box of fun ready for your upcoming long drive! Stay tuned because coming up next is 100 Ideas to Keep Kids Entertained on Road Trips.
Much love and aloha,
Stacey + Niki
**Click here to download the printable road trip kit!
*Our road trip activity packs and kits can now be found in our Etsy shop at a super discounted price. Go check them out! Purchase three or more items and you’ll get 40% off your shopping cart. The discount automatically applies once you put three or more items in your cart.
*Thanks for supporting us and helping us grow this little blog. Your support makes it possible for us to continue sharing and creating printables!
Aloha Friends! We hope to inspire you to create magical memories with your ohana through play, learning, and celebrating. We offer ideas that make celebrating and playing fun and easy, so that you want to do it more often! We love sharing our creativity and talents with you, and hope you find some content on our page that inspires you to create a beautiful life with your ohana.
