Four fun games for summer road trips
When I-spy just won’t cut it on your summer road trip anymore, try playing these fun, no-tech games instead. Read on!While You Were Sleeping
Everyone has a friend who falls asleep as soon as the air temperature and the gentle rocking of the car resembles being back in the womb. This makes them an easy target for various pranks – but using them for a game is better. This one is fun, and better than any nasty prank you could lay on your sleepy friend.
How to play:
- Someone must fall asleep. This is key.
- Woke passengers begin creating a story—a fictional tale of what happened while this person was sleeping.
- Each passenger adds to the story.
- When sleepyhead wakes up, you collectively convince them that the story happened.
- If somebody breaks character or goes off script, you ask, “Is that right?” and then that person is silenced and loses two points.
- If the sleepyhead believes the story, each storyteller wins three points.
- If the sleepyhead somehow fools the car and joins their story correctly, the sleepyhead steals the collective’s current point total.
- Most points at the destination wins. If you have more than one sleepyhead, play a best-of-three series!
Never Have I Ever
This game is most famous as a drinking game, but this is the non-alcoholic, travel-friendly version. That’s right: play the game as you usually would but with juice, soft drink, almond milk lattes or whatever your drink of choice is.
How to play:
- Take turns telling stories beginning with “Never have I ever ____”.
- If you “have”, take a drink.
- First person who needs to use the toilet loses.
The kicker:
You are travelling the Australian countryside and toilets can be few and far between. The tension of the unknowing combined with the increasing bladder pressure adds extra edge.
The Singing Game aka ‘This is the song that never ends’
This game is a little like that song from your childhood that repeats, and repeats, and repeats, but without the nausea. This is a fun way to pit your pop music knowledge against that of your road trip pals.
How to play:
- Someone in the car starts a song and stops after a few lines or words.
- The next person pipes up, connecting the last word of the last person’s line to the start of another set of lyrics.
- Continue around the car until someone messes up, or everyone is stumped.
It goes a little something like this:
- “Is it too late now to say…”
- “…my name, say my name, you…”
- “…used to call me on my cell phone.”
Pro tip:
Don’t choose unpopular lyrics to seem smart, cultured or underground. This will derail the game quicker than you can say “I kissed a girl and I…”.
Master Foodie
This is a little bit like playing a game of Monopoly with Matt Preston. But instead of collecting real estate, you collect food. This game is better than Monopoly because you can’t eat real estate.
How to play:
From every location you stop at, collect a locally produced food item.
The rules:
- At each petrol station, takeaway shop, bakery, supermarket or whatever, hit the shelves for a locally made item.
- You can only get one food item per stop.
- The food item has to be created in the shop’s local region.
Two ways to play:
- The person with the most verifiably local snacks upon arrival at your destination wins. An easy, and delicious, victory.
- If you have a car full of folks, go full Masterchef and put the best collection of food to a popular vote. You could even throw it out there on your socials accounts, tally it up and revel in the heartwarming glow of pure democracy in action.
Pro tip: If your road trip goes for more than a few days, buy food that won’t go off.
Related: Summer festival road-trip guide
Related: Five tips for travelling in road-trip convoy
Related: How to pack your boot like a pro
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