Travel games for kids

When my two kids were growing up we took a lot of road trips. Boredom spawned the fights in the back seat, so we did the 'I spy' thing and the 'VW bug' thing, but that only went so far. These days there are screens in the backs of the front car seats to play movies for the little darlings.
But, before cell phones, video screens and VHS we had coloring books and that ever popular, watching the scenery whizz by followed closely by, "She's looking at me!" and "He's on my side of the car!" The "I'll stop this car and beat both your asses. I'll make sure I get the one that started this crap!" silenced everyone for a while.
Our favorite game was Star Trek. I was the captain. One kid was the weapons officer and then other was the engineering officer. We launched photon torpedoes at the Klingons from Uranus (big trucks). We fired phasers at the 'Amazonian creatures from Krypton'. We took fire from these mortal enemies of the state of confusion and our shields would start to buckle. The engineering officer had to fix the shields and maintain warp speed. Warp was measured by every 10 miles an hour. Warp 1 was 10 mph. Warp 7 was 70 mph. Our dilithium crystals (gas) had to be monitored and a safe space port with a clean bathroom was required. Space travel rules dictate you go to maneuvering thrusters when entering the port.
Yea that was a lot of fun for them until they hit 8 or 9, then they were too cool for dad...
What was your favorite travel games with your kids?

Michael Dotson wrote:When my two kids were growing up we took a lot of road trips. Boredom spawned the fights in the back seat, so we did the 'I spy' thing and the 'VW bug' thing, but that only went so far. These days there are screens in the backs of the front car seats to play movies for the little darlings.

Yea that was a lot of fun for them until they hit 8 or 9, then they were too cool for dad...
What was your favorite travel games with your kids?

As a child who was in the back seat a lot as we were transferred from California to Maryland, or all the other fun, we played a lot of I Spy, read books, slept, played license plate games, and tried not to bother the driver too much. In a Vega, in the mid 70s, was not the time to be challenging a grumpy driver. Once it was noted that imagination games, song singing, and "If I had a Million Dollars" or whatever other thing that the parents could invent were on the "Way too irritating" end of the scale, we had books, easy yarn and weaving crafts, and other things to keep us from imploding.
I can't think of anything that was a favorite, but that could be age creeping up on me.

I still like those little looms, though. And have started to play with an I-cord maker in hopes of turning baby pink acrylic yarn into a trash collecting bag's drawstring.

One summer while at my grandparent's home, my aunt taught me how to play solitaire.

Usually, it was just my Dad and me so that kept me out of his way.

That game sounds like it made the whole car ride an adventure! Car rides can be such a blast. We like to sing, so to pick words and see if we can come up with a song around them. We also used to do games of word play, word association type things often. One of my favorite memories of a car ride is when we were in traffic and saw a plate that said "lookinup". We spent forever guessing all the reasons that would be on there - do they believe in aliens? is it a weatherman? - etc etc, and my Dad then drove around until we ended up right next to them so us kids could ask them out the window. They were astronomers!

Kailyn Topper wrote:One of my favorite memories of a car ride is when we were in traffic and saw a plate that said "lookinup". We spent forever guessing all the reasons that would be on there - do they believe in aliens? is it a weatherman? - etc etc, and my Dad then drove around until we ended up right next to them so us kids could ask them out the window. They were astronomers!

Good story!!!