ok… some friends 'n i shall be off for a long drive (a few hours) in a few weeks…
i was wondering if you guys could/would teach me some games that we can play in the car ?
paper and pen might be available, but it shouldn’t be something writing intensive… preferably driver should be able to play.
we’ve tried word building, what’s the good word, etc. but we soon get bored of it…
i was looking for some fun games that you might know of…
thanks…
With kids or not…?
[ul]
I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with…
First to spot… telephone box / cow / tractor / white car…
Count red / blue / yellow cars…first to reach ten.
Make a note of a cars number plate (L321 ABC), then think of a first name to fit all the letters (Lucy, Anna, Brian, Claire)
[/ul]
Without kids…
Travel Trivial Pursuit
Scruples
(any other non-dice based board game )
Presuming there are mini-humans involved, here are a few of the things the sibs and I amused ourselves with in the backseat of the car:
Done right, these suggestions can hold em for days in a car. Of course the big humans will be insane by then, but what did they expect putting the mini-humans that close together for so long? 
The sleeping game
Bathroom solitare is a classic. Deck of cards. pull 4 cards up and look at them. if the outside 2 cards match in suit, you picth the inside 2 cards. If the outside two cards match in number you toss all four. if they don’t match at all you pull antother card and the second card becomes the first and your freshly pulled card becomes the fourth card… Once you get a bit of a stack, when you remove cards instead of pulling up a new one to replace them, you go back in the stack untill you have four cards. Two hands, no table needed.
Don’t forget Slug-Bug and PT Punch. (PT Being either a cruiser or Public Transpotation) No slugging back on those PT’s! I relish any opportunity to beat on folks who get on my nerves. The game from childhood now is good again with the new bugs being made. Hell… PT Cruser, Double Bruiser! Hit 'em twice for me.
I used to play a game called “who can talk in the squeakiest voice” with my siblings on long car journeys. It did often finish with me getting a slap round the back of the head from my mum.
egg
Well if you want something I used to do on long trips I would spot license plates from different states. I would write down when I saw a different state and see how many I could get on one trip. I don’t count my own car or plates I see in a parking lot at a store usually.
Depending on where you drive, there are several games you can play.
The first game is to do with licence plates. In the UK, we played a game where you count up through the numbers on licence plates as you see them. You start at 1 and work up until you reach the destination/get bored. The easiest way to play is to count a number any time it appears ie if a number plate is 413 NNP, you count the number one and start looking for the number 2. The more difficult way to play is to get the number on its own ie A 1 NNP. Once you get into double digits, it is hard enough though.
Another classic game to play is “Pubs legs” where you count the number of legs which are on the pubs sign or in the name. If you come across a pub called the Queen Victoria, for example, you get two legs cause thats how many a person has. If the pub’s name is The Kings Arms, however, you get nada. You have to decide before you set off how many legs you get for something like The Stagecoach, or the Coach and horses, otherwise it will get ugly. (how many horses are there? Is there a driver? Are there passengers? etc).
<hijack>I think if I ever decided to own a pub, I would call it the Millipedes Army, just to mess with people playing this game. </hijack>
Geography.
One person says the name of a place (decide beforehand what types of place are allowed, we did continents, countries, cities, states, major oceans and rivers and mountain ranges. The next person says the name of a place that begins wth the last letter of the previous place.
South Dakota
Argentina
Arkansas
Scottsdale
East Hampton
…etc etc etc.
If you get stuck, you can pass three times and then you’re out. In one drive from NYC to Boston my family (2 parents, 2 kids) played four continuous hours without anyone getting out, I guess you could say we were kind of into it.
License Plate Bingo
Write down the name of some plates you are likely to see on your drive on some cards like Bingo. Separate “standard” plates and “vanity” plates. Add some wild cards like Alaska, Florida, or someplace far away from where you are driving.
I like the “riddles” yes/no question game. I think someone here called them “lateral puzzles” and gave this URL:
http://www.lateralpuzzles.com/
Someone gives a scenario (A guy is pushing a car past a hotel and he is very nervous, when he gets past the hotel he breathes a sigh of relief. What is going on?) Then everyone asks yes/no questions until they figure out what is going on.
Of course, I am probably the only person that likes to play Bridges, so I obviously like mundane/boring games. 
20 questions is fun. One person thinks of something and they can narrow it down with yes or no questions.
The alphabet game which is much like the above number game but with letters instead. I used to play the alphabet game by myself on long lonely drives if I got bored of listening to music.
The geography game above is good too.
I wouldn’t suggest paper and pen games if the driver intends to play too. Things like hangman are a bit tough for someone who should in theory be keeping their eyes on the road.
We play a game like RickQ’s but with letters of the alphabet on signs. (we play has to be first letter except Q and X)
There’s also the cow game. If you see cows on your side of the road you’re supposed to estimate how many and keep a running tally. If the other person sees a cemetary then all your cows are dead. person with the most cows when you arrive wins. (Of course, with my friends this quickly turns into a search for cemetaries rather than a search for cows and we make up elaborate death scenarios and noone actually wants to call cows because then you end up with dead cows rotting in your shower and other nasty stories)
We also play an alphabet game, but it is a little different. You can swap if to work with anything (names, bridges, fruits…whatever)
If it is three people playing TV–b for instance.
I say: Brady Bunch
he says: Berretta
she says: Bonanza
you go on and on and on until someone can’t think of something. Then they drop out, and it continues. The last person gets the letter/point.
We used to play the name game but it erupted into a huge fight on the way to Disneyland. There was an argument over Tony Danza. After someone said Tony Danza, someone else said Tony Banta, Tony Micelli etc. Also a possible problem different people with the same name (Paul SImon…use him once? or twice?)
I hope this makes sense. My brain is working poorly today.
There’s a game in Alice in Wonderland (or maybe it’s in Through the Looking Glass). I may have forgotten a few details, but, basically, one person picks a letter and the next person has to recite the following paragraph using words starting with that letter.
I love my love with a/an (letter) because he/she is _____. I hate my love with a/an (same letter) because he/she is ______. I feed my love with ________ and ________. My love is a/an ________ and he/she lives in _______.
For example:
I love my love with a B because she is beautiful. I hate my love with a B because she is boring. I feed my love with bricks and bumblebees. My love is a bookkeeper and she live in Berlin.
I have a feeling I have left something out. You could look it up. It can get amusing, especially if you use some imagination on foods and occupations.
Two really mindless ones:
There’s the game “Perdiddle,” in which the basic point is to be the first to spot cars with only one headlight working. You get a point by shouting “Perdiddle!,” whilst simultaneously smacking some solid object (ie. the dashboard, the window, a sibling’s head) really, really hard, before anyone else does. Oh, and you lose a point if the car really has two working headlights, or if it’s a motorcycle.
My friends and I also play this really silly game where you get points if you are the first to spot horses on the side of the road. If someone sees a grouping of three horses, for example, they would shout “Three horses!” and get three points. The catch: if you see a graveyard, and if you can shout “Graveyard! Killed your horses!” before everyone else, you get to keep all your points and they revert back to zero.
A game we often play is to spot a car up ahead and try to guess if the driver is male or female before we pass it. After awhile, you start to notice some pretty consistent trends. For example, If the driver is wearing a hat, then they are almost always male.
Film acronym game:
I say ‘SLIH’ and passengers guess the name of the film - Some Like It Hot - then it’s their turn.
There’s always ‘EYAWTKASBWATA’ (you guess) and the obvious ones are sometimes the hardest:
CTHD, FC, TKAMB, TNBC, BJM - etc.
ok… i should have mentioned these points before (but i’m glad i didn’t, coz i wouldn’t have got swampbear’s reply):
There are no siblings or kids. All are mid-twenties.
We are not driving anywhere within or near the U.S.
There are no cemetaries along the way. And there are too many cows. (interesting game though)
thanks for your responses, shall play some of them… though i’m sure you guys know a few more fun games… c’mon… all those long drives and this is all you come up with ?
I’ve got one I’ve been playing for years, involving license plates. In fact I’ve gotten kind of obsessive about it and I do it all the time now. The object is to take the three letters from a license plate and come up with a word that has those letters in that order (but not necessarily together). Shorter words are preferable. You can duke it out with other players as to whether proper names, etc., are permissible.
Example: Plate’s letters are RTD. RaTeD is acceptable, but DiRT is not, because the letters are not in the same order.
The best one I’ve ever done was XNZ. I eventually came up with “extravaganza.”
Oops, didn’t see that post until too late. Do Indian license plates have letters on them?