Car trip activities - minimum hassle!

Whether it’s two hours, twelve hours or twenty-four hours, long car trips always require planning with little kids. Here’s a hint which we’ve found has minimised the fuss.  

Have you ever packed card or board game to keep your little treasures occupied, just to have them drop bits, or have things slide around? This is a good solution to some of the dramas.  

Step one – the game board. Get hold of a board game which only required the board, counters and dice. Snakes and ladders is a good one. Either photocopy a board which you already have or make up one of your own. (I’ve got a good printable snakes and ladders board – minti mail me and I’ll send it to you if you wish!) Photocopy one board for each player and laminate.  

Step two – the counters. This one’s easy. Get hold of some whiteboard pens, one for each player. Felt pens can work at a pinch, but they tend to rub off to easily.  

Step three – dice. The easiest one of all - because they're not needed! Instead of rolling a dice (near impossible) or using a spinner (very difficult), take advantage of all those cars going past. The first number on the numberplate of the car going past is the roll! For example, if the numberplate is 309 HGT, the roll is 3. If the next car to go past is 862 OKT, the next player’s roll is 8. If there’s heavy traffic, you might have to use every second car, or the next white/ red/ blue etc car.  

Each player marks his/ her place with a cross on his/ her board. Next roll, just draw a new cross on the next counter and rub off the previous cross. Having a board for each person makes this easier, and also saves having to pass the board from the front seat to the back seat, from the left side over the box of Christmas presents, from the right side behind the esky with lunch in it and so on…  

In our family, we’ve found it works well if each person calls out their move so the temptation to move up a square or seven when no one’s looking doesn’t take hold. For example, Mary calls out ‘I’m on 13, I need to move 5 places to 18.’ If next turn Mary calls out ‘I’m on 56 and I’m moving 3 places…’ then there’s always enough people paying attention to raise the alarm!  

Another good thing about this is that it means the kids are looking out the windows for the next car, so this helps with minimising motion sickness.   Good luck with this tip on your next long car trip – I hope it works for your family!