Simple games can entertain kids during long car trips

NEW YORK — Think you’re a road warrior for planning a long car trip with children this summer?

Maybe you’re heading west to national parks, south to Disney or north to a lake in the woods. Surely your trek will unfold on the hottest day of the year, in the worst traffic — and one of the kids will need a bathroom when there isn’t one.

But before you feel too sorry for yourself, consider the itinerary of Mark and Michelle Faldoski, parents of Kyle, 8, and Kensie, 4. They spent the month of May driving from Fairbanks, Ala., to their new home in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., visiting family in New York and Ohio along the way — some 6,000 miles in all.

Mark plotted the route; Michelle was in charge of water and snacks — not to mention toilet-seat covers for public restrooms. Kensie had Barbies and art supplies, and Kyle had his PlayStation — connected to a TV, plugged into the cigarette lighter. They also brought homemade tapes and a pile of DVDs, bought at $5 closeout sales.

The Faldoskis are experienced road-trippers; Mark, a vehicle operations chief in the Air Force, has been transferred before — from Washington, D.C., to Wyoming, then from Wyoming to Alaska. And how has the advent of a portable TV-PlayStation impacted their trips?

“It’s a godsend!” Michelle and Mark simultaneously exclaimed. Michelle added that the kids watch more TV in the car than they ever do at home.

Playing with a Game Boy or listening to a Walkman can also keep children occupied. But not every family goes for electronics in the car. Some kids get nauseous looking at a small screen; older, smaller cars may not accommodate lots of gadgets; some parents feel like their kids watch too much TV as it is.

Fortunately other options exist. Even 21st century kids enjoy classic games like “Twenty Questions,” “I Spy with My Little Eye,” “Geography,” “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” and thumb-wrestling. The book “TravelMates” (Three Rivers Press, $8), is a treasure-trove of old favorites like these, along with many other games for kids of all ages. All are simple to learn and require no materials.

Among the games recommended by authors Story Evans and Lise O’Haire is “Math on the Go,” in which you create simple math problems from numbers on a license plate. Small children can be asked to simply read the numbers; older kids can add them or multiply, depending on their ability.

Another game from “TravelMates” is “Silly Phrases on the Move” in which you create a phrase where each word begins with a letter from a license plate. “AKZ, for example, could be ‘all kites zoom,’ ” explained Evans.

Evans and O’Haire, who are mothers from Atlanta, also include guessing games, such as guessing a letter that someone traces on your palm or back with a fingertip.

The game “Curiously Quiet” is surprisingly popular with preschoolers. The objective is simple: Who can stay quiet the longest? “They love it because they think you’ve challenged them,” said O’Haire, but it’s great for giving parents a peaceful interlude.

The book also abounds with “What would you do…” games. “What would you do if you got a million dollars, or if you came home and the refrigerator was full of ice cream?” said O’Haire. “What would you do if you could do anything at all, or if you could be one toy for a day, or if you could change one thing about your life, or if the tooth fairy came and took you out for a night?”

She added: “These games will make you laugh forever. They’re built around having fun and good times. “

Most parents have a routine for their car trips. Wendy Bisbee, her husband and three children — 11, 8 and 6 — regularly drive 11 hours from their home in New Hampshire to visit family in Virginia, and they recently made a 2,600-mile round-trip to Florida. They try to start out before 4 a.m., so the kids sleep in the car the first few hours amid pillows and blankets.

Bisbee packs snacks, breakfast and lunch (but nothing that creates crumbs or stains); they only stop for gas, bathroom breaks and dinner. She brings books to read aloud — Robert Newton Peck’s “Soup” series is a favorite — and they play games. Favorites include spotting license plates from all 50 states and the “semi search,” in which each player chooses a color and counts how many semitrailer trucks pass by in that color.

When her children were younger, she made up “surprise bags,” filled with inexpensive items like Silly Putty, paper dolls and Colorforms, which can be stuck to car windows. “Every few hours, I would pull something new out for them to use,” she said.

Ginger Holmes, of Westport, Conn., a 9-year-old big sister to Clay, 8, and Sarah, 6, recommends listening to books on tape in the car. She reports that Sherlock Holmes mystery stories are a family favorite on trips to visit an uncle in Boston.

“I like them because the plots are always really exciting, and always really different, and there is always the mystery of what is going to happen in the end,” she said. “I think they are a lot better than DVDs, because with the stories you have to think more, whereas with a video you just watch and find out. It’s way cooler to have to think. Also, you can hear the voices and the sounds and make pictures in your head. And that’s much more fun than just watching pictures in a movie.”