My family has traveled many times with one or two kids in the backseat of the car. The most excruciatingly painful trip was taken when we were only recently married and took a trip to San Simeon with another couple and their brand-new baby. My dear friend was still getting the hang of nursing her newborn, and as a result, the wee one kept waking every few hours crying with hunger. As a result our six-hour drive took nearly ten, but thankfully our friendship survived.

Another time, my three-year-old son (who is now nearly 16) erupted strawberry pancakes like a volcano all over himself in the backseat of our Accord, and we had to pull over and change his clothes on the side of the road. Blech!

Carsickness and hungry infants aside, when undertaking any road trip, the key to backseat harmony can be as simple as knowing a few silly games to help pass the time on long trips. I was cruising the media site at Mobil 1 and found this collection of fun games you can play in the car, <http://www.mobil.com/USA-English/GFM/Audiences/Travel_Games.asp> simple games that are fun for kids of all ages--even the grown-up kind. But please, don't let back-seat games--or anything else--distract you when you're driving!

Fun With Words

Build stories together two ways. First, try telling a story one word at a time. Each person adds a word, building on the last word and adding to the story. Another version of this game is for each person to tell part of the story for one minute. At the end of that minute, the story passes to the next person, who continues the story for another minute.

Twenty Questions

You know how it goes. Choose a familiar person, place or thing, then have everyone take turns trying to figure out what it is. Each person asks a series of "yes" or "no" questions. As long as the answer is "yes," the person gets to keep asking questions. When a question is answered "no," question asking moves to the next person. The asking continues until the game is solved or twenty "no" answers have been given.

Choose A Side

This game works best with two people. First, each person chooses a side of the road. Next, choose something to count and something to avoid--like horses and haystacks.  Each person counts the number of horses on their side of the road. If they see a haystack, they lose their horses and have to start over. Whoever has the most horses at the end of the game wins.

Back Seat Bingo

Whether you choose road signs, license plates or random objects, create 5 X 5 game grids and place descriptions in the squares. For example, a row of road signs could read "RR X-ing," "Yield," "Merge," "Falling Rocks" and "Stop." Players mark an "X" in each box as the objects are found. The first to get a row of five going down, across or diagonally wins.

A To Z

Have the kids write the alphabet down the side of a piece of paper. Have them look for objects that begin with each letter and write them down. The first to complete their alphabet wins. The A to Z search can be wide open or specific to a topic, such as cars.

What games do you play in the car? Share them with us here!

Creative commons images courtesy of respres and stevegatto via flickr.

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