Bingo
Some of the best activities for long road trips involve looking out the window, and one of the most classic games is bingo. In the car, you can play bingo by having the kids find cars of different colors, or farm animals, or whatever sights you think you might see. You can make bingo cards yourself, or use the myriad of printable ones available on the Internet. Before your trip, print off bingo cards like the ones at kaboose.com, which feature different colors of cars in each space. To make the cards last longer, use pencils to mark off the spaces, or laminate the cards and use whiteboard markers to mark your space.
License Plate Game
With 50 states in the United States, and even the occasional foreign license plate out there on the road, there&'s plenty of variety for a good license plate game. Each player goes on the hunt for license plates from different states, keeping track of the ones they&'ve found. Foreign plates can count as bonus points. The game can end when one person gets to a certain number. To make the game more challenging, try to find plates from all 50 states.
Alphabet Word Search
One person starts by looking for something that starts with the letter "a," then the next person looks for something starting with "b," and so on. The game can end when someone is stumped, or it can continue on endlessly, with long "timeouts" when nothing of that letter pops up -- like when you&'re looking for "x" in the middle of a Kansas cornfield, for example.
Paper Games
When you&'re on a road trip, don&'t overlook the value of a plain pad of paper. That basic pad can be used for countless games of tic tac toe and hangman to get you through the long hours. It can also be a place to keep score for all the other games you&'ve been playing.
Magnetic Checkers
If a board game is magnetic, the pieces are less likely to be misplaced. That special feature can come in very handy while on a van trip with the kids. Magnetic checkers and chess sets can provide plenty of intense road trip competition. They can be found on sites like boardgames.com, or at your local toy shop.