Grab these free printableroad trip games & activities for your next car trip and keep the kids busy!
We are gearing up for a HUGE family car trip this summer and I'm on the look-out for some road trip activities (like this free printable License Plate Game!) to keep the kids off their phones & busy en route ;)
Car Bingo Printable
Print and go Car Bingo: License Plate, Customize or start from scratch with Car Bingo: License Plate bingo cards by logging in or registering your Bingo Card Creator Give one card to each player. Call off words randomly from the cut-aprt call list automatically genarated when you print your Car Bingo: License Plate. Free travel bingo cars from Golf Shores Alabama 8 different cards to choose from. Click here for free prinatbles. Free Travel bingo cards from Frugal Girls. Click here to get your free printable bingo cards. Free Dora travel bingo cards from Nick Jr. Click here to print yours now.
Since we love to travel, I'll be sharing a handful of posts over the next few months with lots of tips & ideas for family travel! We're also sharing many of our favorite travel items along with affiliate links to each so you can see if they're a good fit for your family too.
Here are a few of the ways we get ready for a trip:
- Keep the car organized with these 27 Track Hacks & Road Trip Tips
- If your kids enjoy audio books, movies or educational apps, be sure to sign up for the Amazon FreeTime Unlimited FREE Trial before you go!!
- Have ad-free on-demand music for your trip: Try the Amazon Music Unlimited 30-Day Free Trial
- Grab this FREE Printable Road Trip Planner: 10 Things to do Before Your Next Road Trip
- And check out these NEW ideas -- 15 Road Trip Printable Games & Travel Activities!!
The trip is going to be much longer than we thought -- 10 days through 11 states covering 2600 miles!!
I know - crazy! But we're really looking forward to it -- we believe that family travel is a great way for kids to learn all kinds of things.
It's going to be a monster of a trip with lots of overnight stops and quite a few hours in the car.
Soooo .... time to start planning on how to keep everyone busy, happy and fed ;)
How to Make a Road Trip Binder
The first thing I always tackle is putting together a binder for the trip that's chocked full of fun (& free) printable activities.
I'm telling you -- this little binder has been a huge help on our trips!
The fact that our kids have had something to look forward to each morning when we load up the car is incentive enough for them to not drag their feet when we have to pack up. And it's been wonderful to have a way to keep them writing and reading using fun activities on our trips.
I've included links below for each of the resources we've found along with affiliate links for items that will help you put together your own road trip binder.
I have three goals when I create a car trip binder for kids, tweens or teens:
1. Include surprise activities they can do both on their own & with others in the car
2. Find fun things that will keep them off the tech for a while
3. Get the kids interested in the places we're visiting on our trip -- because that's one of the reasons we travel, right?!
First, print off a variety of travel games & activities!
I search for games they really enjoy (for example, Mad Libs are a big hit with us right now) and fun pages like coloring or design printables.
We also play the license plate game as a family every summer so that's a big one for us too!
I look for maps & activities that highlight places on our travel route, worksheets that share fun facts about the states we visit and anything that gets them writing -- like some fun travel journal pages.
Printable Road Trip Games for Kids, Tweens & Teens
Here's a huge selection of printable road trip games & activities to make things easier for you!
Just choose the ones that fit your child's age and ability!
Or if your short on time, check out the 15 printable road trip games & travel activities in our Road Trip Pack!
- All for the Boys has some wonderful car activities -- 12 pages of mini games & puzzlesthe kids will love!!
- Enjoy some fun family discussions with this free set of 20 Questions to play with your kids!
- I love this Travel Battleship game from Mothers Home!
- Play the License Plate Game with this free printable state map.
- Salt and Pepper Moms has a fun printable car game sheet and a travel journal page too.
- FreePuzzles.net has 6 printable car games including mazes, hangman and car bingo.
- Enjoy these 5 printable car games from In the Playroom (for US & UK travel).
- I Heart Organzing has some wonderfully colorful Road Trip BINGO and Alphabet I-Spy to keep the kids entertained.
- And you know how much we adore Scavenger Hunts! Here are a few gems:
- Road Trip 'Find It' for Tweens from Carla Schauer
- City, Suburb & Rural Scavenger Hunts from Mom's Minivan
- Make & Takes has a fun coloring scavenger hunt too
Hitting the road soon & short on time?
Be sure to see these 15 Printable Road Trip Activities & Travel Games too!!
Road Trip Activities & Travel Printables to do in the Car
Free Printable Bingo Number Cards
Try these Kids' Travel Journal pages that are perfect for encouraging a little writing & recording the trip while on the road!
For some great state-by-state learning, visit Education.com and print out the State Puzzle Sheets for each state on your trip.
I like to include a Kids' Road Atlas or map with the binder too (we get ours free with our AAA membership) -- this is great for map reading skills!
Activity Idea: Have your kids highlight the route you're taking in the atlas and they can follow along as you drive.
Younger kids might enjoy driving a Hot Wheels car along the route as you travel. Older kids will be intrigued to see what interesting places you might be passing en route.
More Road Trip Activities & Games
If your kids have a cell phone or camera, print this FREE Photo Scavenger Hunt for them to complete on the trip!
Enjoy this Hotel Scavenger Hunt from Moms & Munchkins if you're spending the night on the road.
Picklebums has these cute and open-ended Road Trip Drawing Prompts.
Doodle Art Alley has a set of Summer Coloring pages that can be used individual or as a family coloring activity.
Organize the Car Games & Activities
Next, I organize all the printables into a Road Trip binder!
One thing that works well for us is to sort the pages by travel day so I know that each morning of our trip there will be new activities for our kids to do!
I separate the printables using manila folders (which is great in case we want to pull out the items for one day). Then I use a 3 Hole Punch with all the printables & manila folders and insert them into the binder. Each set is labeled with the date so it's easy to see.
I include a 3-Ring Pencil Pouch with the following items:
- a nice set of Colored Pencils,
- a regular pencil & pencil sharpener,
- a pen
- and an eraser.
We don't bring markers in the car (I learned why the hard way) and crayons tend to melt in the summer heat when we travel so we've found that a set of colored pencils is the way to go ;)
We also love to have these Storage Folding Lap Desks so the kids have an easy place to read/write during our trips!
I also put their summer reading logs (see all the 2019 FREE Summer Reading programs here!) in the back of the binder since we do a lot of reading & audio books in the car (grab a copy of this free Summer Reading Log to use on the trip!).
Last, I created a fun cover for the binder along with an autograph page for the back of the binder which is great to have when you're visiting a lot of family -- everyone can sign a fun note on this page.
Here's a front & back cover for the road trip binder you can download for FREE!
There you go -- step 1 in preparing for the Ultimate Summer Road Trip!
More Road Trip Ideas:
15 Printable Road Trip Activities & Travel Journal for Kids & Tweens
10 Things to do Before Your Next Road Trip {with free printable checklist!}
Travel Journal Ideas for Kids {with free printables!}
More Summer Ideas:
These cards are all about Car Bingo: License Plate . These bingo cards include words like you can create cards like these using BingoCardCreator
How To Play Car Bingo: License Plate Bingo Cards
- Print and go Car Bingo: License Plate, Customize or start from scratch with Car Bingo: License Plate bingo cards by logging in or registering your Bingo Card Creator
- Give one card to each player.
- call off words randomly from the cut-aprt call list automatically genarated when you print your Car Bingo: License Plate. You can either just call out the word or give more involved clue where the answer is.
- Players mark the word on their card.
- Get the prize bag ready! The first player to mark words in an entire row, column or diagonal wins!.
Timing Tips:
How long a bingo game lasts depends on what pace you read the clues at and how many players you have. If you read faster, such as for older or more experienced students, or if you have more players, the game tends to end more quickly. In general, I suggest allocating between twenty and thirty minutes to a bingo game. Since they can potentially end as early as the fourth word called, though that is quite rare, I encourage you to keep playing in the event of the game being over earlier than you expected it to be. Almost 90% of bingo games with a 25 word list and 25 players will see their first bingo within 7 to 11 words being called.
Card Customization Tip:
You can use Bingo Card Creator to change the card size. This will help if you do not have a lot of time or for younger audiences.
You can use Bingo Card Creator to add pictures or change the free space to make a truly personalized bingo game .
Words List For Car Bingo: License Plate Bingo Cards
- ADG
- 542
- ZPR
- AND
- HTY
- 576
- MLZ
- 123
- 456
- 789
- 012
- OEB
- NIS
- JLE
- FCA
- 092
- EID
- 382
- CIE
- 610
- XPW
- KWL
- AGO
- POX
- 629