Road trips are pretty fun when you can stay out of accidents and avoid needing to consult with a personal injury attorney. You get to take a small handful of people to see some cool stuff, stop by some unique shops and more.
The sad part is how boring the long stretches of road in between each stop can be. The good news is there’s so much fun that you can have in these spaces that while you’ll find a few below, it’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Plan Fun Stops
The best part of any road trip is the fun stops you make along the way. Most are spurred on by at least one destination, such as an amusement park, but they definitely don’t have to be. You could simply want to drive around with buddies and just see what’s out there. Or, you could plan your route around a few different stops.
The best part about road trip stops is that you don’t even have to necessarily plan them very far in advance; you could just follow the billboards. Most states have billboards or signs every so often either telling you what amenities like hotels lie ahead or advertising fun stops like shops.
Some are designed to be silly to try and draw in business from the bored road trippers driving past. So long as you know this going into it and prevent yourself from buying too much overpriced novelty junk, you’ll have quite a bit of fun just exploring what these places have to offer.
Write a Story
So long as someone has their phone, you can all write a story together. You start by deciding on a prompt and then someone either writes a paragraph or a sentence based on that prompt.
They then hand off the phone or notebook to the next person and have them do the same. Once either everyone has contributed or the story has reached a conclusion, someone reads it aloud. While it’s pretty simple, it can be shifted around to suit your needs and typically has hilarious results.
Of course, you don’t have to write a full blown story if you don’t want to. You could just make a seneca by taking turns saying one word until you’ve got a complete sentence. These tend to be pretty hilarious on their own, but they can then be used as the first sentence of a group story if desired. The fun is basically infinite with this game.
Play Road Trip Games
One fun way to keep boredom at bay is by playing road trip games. While you could start up a round of 99 bottles of beer on the wall or the quiet game, this will likely just be insulting to those around you. Instead, maybe try the license plate game, 20 questions, or alphabet game.
There are 2 versions of the license plate game. The first sees passengers searching license plates to find at least one from every state in some kind of order, typically alphabetical. If this doesn’t tickle your fancy, then try and just count all of the license places from other states you see. Just bear in mind that this game can be really fun in busy parking lots, bustling cities and crowded highways, this game can get pretty stale if you’re on small streets or empty highways.
Few road trip games are as infamous as 20 questions, and for good reason; it’s pretty fun to play. It all darts when one player comes up with an object or person. Once they’ve made it clear that they’ve done so, everyone else asks up to 20 yes or no questions to try and figure out what it is. The player with the correct guess wins. If no one can correctly guess, then the player who came up with the object wins.
The alphabet game is a simple one that can be fun for a bit based on who you’re playing with and how outlandish their answers are. One person picks a topic and a letter and then says a word that relates to the topic that starts with that letter. The hardest part is to try and not say the same word as someone else. This game has no point system or end and can be started or stopped at any time.
Rest
Sometimes, the best cure for boredom is to pull over and just rest. Preferably, you’d do this at a gas station or rest stop. Once parked, talk with your passengers and see what you all should do next.
Some will run to the bathroom or to get some snacks while others may just get out of the car and walk around to stretch their legs. You’ll all then need to decide where to stop for food, who will drive next, what fun activity to do next and where to rest for the night. You can plan the rest of your trip accordingly.
Go Shopping
On your trip, you’re likely to pass some amazing mom and pop shops or unique stores. Stopping by these stores when you’re able will not only allow you all to stretch your legs, but also browse what’s available. You’ll be able to joke about some really gaudy shirt or a silly knick-knack. If you’re lucky, you’ll even find some really cool trinkets to take home.
