29 Fun Adult Road Trip Games
There’s nothing quite like a road trip — the freedom of the open road have millions of us hopping in the car each year. We dream of days spent exploring and wide open spaces. Inevitably, though, you’ll find yourself driving long hours. Luckily, there are plenty of adult road trip games to keep you entertained.
The next time you find yourself zoning out, pull out these games! They’re perfect for road trips with friends, couples, the whole family, and even if you’re road tripping solo. You’ll all be laughing and watching the miles disappear in no time.
PS: Will you be tenting on your road trip? Learn how to camp in the rain »
Classic Adult Road Trip Games
There are so many classic road trip games that are perfect for adults and kids alike — in fact, you’ve probably played these games before. They’re low-key and you can easily play them throughout your entire trip.
The License Plate Game
The License Plate Game is a simple travel game that requires lots of time on the road — just keep track of all the different state/province license plates you see. Easy, right?
You’ll rack them up quickly, but it becomes surprisingly difficult — have you ever seen a Hawaii plate on the mainland?
- You can play this with a pen and paper or upgrade with a travel journal.
- Cross off each license plate from a different state or province you see.
- Each vehicle can only be claimed once.
- When someone’s spotted every state or province’s license plate, they win! If no one manages this, the person with the most at the end of your trip wins.
Road Trip Bingo
Who doesn’t love a game of bingo? It’s even better when it’s road trip themed because, let’s be honest, everything is better when it’s road trip themed.
- Create your own bingo cards with themes such as wild animals, road signs, restaurant/hotel chains, landmarks, etc.
- When an item is spotted, let everyone know so they can cross it off (or not).
- The first person to make five in a row wins!
Road Trip Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are a timeless road trip game that’s lots of fun for adults. Make your list as wacky and weird, easy or difficult, as you want to keep everyone entertained on those long days of driving.
- Before heading out, make a scavenger hunt with (un)common road trip sights such as road work signs, vintage motel signs, a dog riding shotgun, etc.
- Decide if it’s a photo challenge — this requires snapping a photo of each item for photographic evidence. The driver is excluded from this requirement.
- The person who completes the scavenger hunt first wins!
Road Trip Board & Card Games for Adults
Board and card games are always a blast, so why not bring them along on your road trip? Grab a travel sized version and you’re good to go! You can play these games in the car or once you’re set up for the night.
Bad People Card Game
This hilarious card game will have everyone on your road trip cracking up. It’s a simple card game that can easily be played in the car by reading questions and voting for each other. It’s a hoot!
Bad Choices Card Game
Get down and dirty with your road trip buddies by asking them to spill their darkest secrets and stories through ridiculous choices. Highly recommended for people you’re close with.
Hot Seat Card Game
Get to know your friends really well with close-hitting questions. This road trip game is sure to drag up some stories everyone was hoping were forgotten.
Don’t want to buy a card game? See the free version below.
Answer This: Couples Card Game
How well do you really know your partner? Get to know each other better on your road trip with this easy-to-pickup card game. It comes with score pads, but you don’t need them while on the road.
Never Have I Ever Card Game
We all know this classic drinking game, right? Why not cut out the drinking (if you’re actually driving) and have a few laughs? Be warned: some of the questions can get pretty personal.
Don’t want to buy a card game? See the free version below.
Get to Know Each Other Adult Road Trip Games
A road trip is the perfect time to get to know your fellow travel buddies — whether that’s your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, or friends. There’s always something to learn and these adult road trip games are the best way to do that!
TableTopics to GO Road Trip
Need some prompts to get the conversation going? Grab this pack of 40 questions cards that’s designed for road trips.
Would You Rather
I’m sure you’ve played Would You Rather before. This road trips game is simple in concept but can get pretty ridiculous as the game progresses.
- Compare two things and decide which you’d rather do on repeat.
- Go around the car with each person taking their pick.
Hot Seat
Hot Seat is the perfect road trip game to ask your friends questions. Make the questions as silly, thought-provoking, insightful, or inquisitive as you want. Hot Seat is a really great game to connect with your travel companions and spark meaningful (or silly) conversations.
- Before you begin, set boundaries. Are certain topics off-limits? Make sure everyone feels comfortable. If someone doesn’t want to answer a question (even if it wasn’t explicitly said beforehand), respect their wishes.
- Pick someone to be in the hot seat. When everyone’s ready, the other passengers ask this person five questions.
- When you’re done, choose a new person for the hot seat and play again!
Don’t run out of questions! Grab this book of 501 questions for when you inevitably can’t think of your own (because it happens to the best of us).
Never Have I Ever…
Never Have I Ever is a classic drinking game and works really well for road trips, too (minus the drinking, obviously). You don’t need cards and there’s always some sort of revelation that gets everyone laughing.
- Raise five fingers.
- Someone says “Never have I ever…” followed by a simple statement.
- If you’ve done the action, lower a finger.
- When all your fingers are down, you lose!
Need some prompts? Grab the card game.
Two Truths and a Lie
How well do you really know your travel buddies? In this road trip game, you have to spot the fake fact!
- Each person says three facts about themselves — two are real and one is a lie.
- Everyone else has to guess which is the lie.
Questions
Questions is a great way of getting to know your travel companions. It’s disguised as an adult road trip game, but it’s actually a whole lot more. If you’re not tied to it being a game, it’s also a great way to have interesting conversations.
- Going in circles, ask your fellow road trippers questions.
- You can start with easy questions, but as time wears on you can get into deeper and more personal questions.
Get to Know the Area Road Trip Games
Instead of driving straight through an area and learning nothing about it, these adult road trip games will introduce you a little more to the areas you’re exploring.
Regional Food Master
The goal is to collect the most regional-ish snacks or drinks during your road trip trip. This game introduces you to all kinds of local cuisine — good and bad.
- At every grocery store or gas station, find a local food, drink, or unusual item.
- The item has to be from the region and can’t be available at home.
- Buy or photograph the item. This road trip game is the most fun when everyone can taste/drink it, but if you want to save money, simply take a photo.
- At the end of your road trip, the person who’s collected the most items wins.
Take this game up a notch by buying a polaroid camera and making a scrapbook of all the regional foods you’ve tried! Rate, date, and record them so you can look back and laugh at your adventures.
Left, Right, or Straight?
Left, Right, or Straight? is a fun travel game to explore the area you’re visiting — simply choose a direction every time you come to an intersection. It’s a great way to go on an adventure that involves no planning whatsoever.
- Before you begin, determine how you’ll decide which direction to go when you come to an intersection. Will you choose on the spot? Will you draw straws or pull from a bag? Or maybe you pre-selected each turn before you even get in the car.
- When you reach an intersection, go the direction that was picked. If your choice isn’t available (ex: there’s no right turn), you can pick again or simply continue straight.
- With some luck, you’ll find your way to a beautiful view or fun attraction and can hang out there for awhile.
Storytime Road Trip Games
With so much time on your hands during a road trip, there’s lots of opportunity to make up hilarious stories with your friends and family.
Did You Hear That?
This adult road trip game is a game of fact or fiction and the whole point is to fool your buddies. The better you are at lying through your teeth, the better you’ll do! A fun twist to this travel game is to make it locally based about wherever you’re road tripping.
- Ask your opponent “Did you hear that…?”. Fill in the blank with your fact (real or fake). Keep your “fact” pretty short and use your best tactics to lead your opponent astray.
- Then, your opponent either says “That didn’t happen”, “I did hear that,” or “Tell me more”.
- If they correctly call out a fact (as either true or false), they get a point.
- If they incorrectly call out a fact, you get a point.
- For every “tell me more” they say, points double until they finally call you out.
Want to take it up a notch? Grab a trivia book! They’re full of weird and wacky facts that seem fake but are totally true. A trivia book will make this game a whole lot harder!
Sorry I’m Late
Sorry I’m Late is an easy and uncomplicated adult road trip game — it’s basically a guess-the-movie game.
- Say “sorry I’m late” and then give an excuse for your tardiness. Your excuse has to be the plot of a movie.
- Your friends can ask questions and the first person to guess the movie wins.
Explain a Movie Plot Really Badly
This is a great road trip game for movie lovers. This game is all about explaining a movie plot terribly and making your travel buddies guess the movie.
- Take turns picking a movie and creatively sharing a description about it — the worse the description, the funnier!
- Make your description as long or short as you’d like.
- There are no real winners in this game, but it’s bound to get everyone laughing.
Fake Facts
This game is just 100% wild. Make up the most outlandish facts you can and try to convince your friends it’s real! To make it even better, don’t let them know what you’re up to. Your friends and family will be off guard and more likely to believe you.
While You Were Asleep
Wait for someone to fall asleep and then come up with a funny (but still believable) story with everyone that’s still awake. Once they wake up, tell your story!
Everyone should take turns adding details, without going too over the top. If your sleeper doesn’t catch on, don’t tell them what’s happening until you’ve reached your destination. Or never tell them…
Fictional Families
Let your imagination run wild with this fun adult road trip game! Take a good look at the people inside a car beside you and create a backstory for them. Who are they seeing? What’s their deepest, darkest secret? Why are they travelling? Some really funny stories get invented!
One Minute
In One Minute, someone chooses a topic and everyone else has to talk about it for a whole minute. No pauses, ums, or repeating yourself! If you think a minute is short, just wait until you have to ramble about a random topic.
Window Gazing Road Trip Games for Adults
You’ll be looking out the window a lot on your road trip. Why not make a game of it? Plus, these adult road trip games don’t require any supplies so you don’t have to worry about space.
The Alphabet Game
From A-Z and in alphabetical order, search for words out the window. Anything from motel names, road signs, billboards, cars, and more count. The only catch is that each word can only be used once. The first person to Z wins!
Padiddle
In this road trip game, the goal is to spot cars with their headlights out. It’s best played at night where it’s easier to spot them. When someone spots a car light out, yell “padiddle” and slap the car’s ceiling.
Coloured Cars
Spot as many weird coloured cars as possible. Sounds easy, right? Think again.
- Each person chooses an unusual car colour (think: teal, mustard, or mint). Pick wisely.
- Every time you spot a car in your chosen colour, you get a point.
- At the end of your trip, the person with the fewest points buy everyone a drink.
Cows on My Side
It’s almost guaranteed on road trips that you’re going to see lots of cows. Cows on My Side is a fun road trip game where you can win by spotting cows (or other animals of your choosing) out your window.
- If you see a cow out your window, yell “cows on my side” for a point.
- If you see cows out the other window, yell “cows on your side” before the other person does to take one of their points.
- If you pass a cemetery, yell “ghost cow” to steal all their points.
Road Trip Guessing Games
Guessing games are a lot of fun for road trips.
Guess Who (Travel Edition)
Guess Who can easily be adapted into a road trip game and the good news is that you don’t need any equipment.
- One player chooses a destination, such as National Parks, countries, or road trip routes, and keeps it secret.
- Everyone else can ask ten yes-or-no questions to try and figure out the destination.
- If the player keeps it secret, they win!
All the Other Travel Games
Need more ideas for games to play in the car? Don’t worry, I’ve gotcha covered. Here are even more adult travel games to play on the road.
Swear Jar
Swear Jar is sure to entertain (and probably annoy) everyone on your road trip. Don’t it to when you’re in the car, either — keep playing while doing all your fun, touristy road trip things!
- Pick a few common words that are off-limits. They don’t have to be swear words — the more common the word, the harder (and funnier) this game will be. Think words like road, gas, bathroom, etc.
- When someone slips up and says the off-limit word, add their name to the “swear jar”.
- At the end of the day, tally the names in the swear jar. The person who “swore” the most on your road trip buys everyone a round of drinks.
You get the idea! Talking and laughing are the best ways to pass the time… and to learn a bit about your car mates.
