Our family had basically the same game. Most of the time it was the same 80 miles on the freeway. We didn’t exclude X. There was one store along the road that had an X in the name. We always got to X and waited until we got to that store to get the X.
Oh, we didn’t totally skip the letter X, it just didn’t have to be the 1st letter of the word. Embedded Xs, such as in Exit were acceptable. The other 25 letters had to begin the word or license plate sequence to count. Our games could go for a very L-O-N-G time!
Now that I think about it. It wasn’t the X. I think the word just had to have the letter so EXIT would work. It could have been a Q or something. I just remember the one place with the rare letter and we all knew it.
While out & about running errands today, I remembered another game my older brother and I played on long car trips back in the mid-late 60s: something we called “Spot the Car”. Each player picks an easily recognized automobile model (he chose VW Beetles, I did Ford Mustangs) and the game is played somewhat like “Slug Bug” only there’s no slugging involved. Each player gets one point for each time they spot a vehicle of their chosen model and announces it to their opponent. They lose one point if their opponent spots and announces their model vehicle before they do. For example, if Big Brother spotted and called out “Beetle” before I did, he would get one point. If I saw it and called it before he did he lost a point. Vice versa for me and Mustangs. The game would either end upon reaching a previously agreed upon point total or arrival at our destination.
It may be a bit more challenging to pick easily recognizable/distinctive models now that so many sedans and SUVs have generally similar looks, but I think maybe Jeep Wranglers, Kia Souls, Nissan Cubes, and a few other models could work as well as Beetles and Mustangs did back in the day. Of course, those handful of distinctive designs do stand out pretty well when almost everything else looks alike, so there you go!
Back in the day, we’d go nuts trying to spot all the See Rock City signs, birdhouses, car bumpers and barn sides we could. Also, Stuckeys.
This wouldn’t work in a car, but Facts in 5. You write a 5 letter word across the top of the page and 5 categories down the side and then fill in the chart. For example, the word is candy. One of the categories is girls’ names so, Ann.
What about, I’m going on a picnic. I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring apples. Then the next person repeats, I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing apples and biscuits, etc all the way to Z.
One game we always played on car trips started by someone naming a city. Say New York (ignore the word City. if applicable). The second player would name a city whose name began with K, say Kansas. The next person would have to name a city that started with S. I’m not sure what we did if someone named Sioux, maybe ignored the X. You could go a long way with this game. Especially if you played it to continue, not to end (so no Sioux).
Where/when I grew up, it was just called Dots.