Sometimes when you are road trips the best thing that could happen is for everyone to be quiet for just a little while.
One way to do that is to pick out something in the distance, a building, a bridge, even a billboard. Everyone but the driver shuts their eyes. They players have to guess when they are right beside the building or bridge. If you know the route, you can play this by having everyone (except the driver of course) shut their eyes and guess when the turn to Grandma’s is, or how far it is to a certain intersection. Now if you are driving through someplace flat with few turns off the intersection like parts of the Midwest, this is a hard game to play. In this case you can have them guess when you’ve gone a mile or five. You can use the odometer on the car, or the mile markers along the highway. These games are harder than they sound. It’s really hard, especially for kids, to judge how the distance of the object and the distance the car has traveled. The best part of this game is that the kids automatically get quiet. When they close their eyes, they close their mouths too. The drawback to this game is that you should expect some bickering about how called it the closest and who was peeking.
We also like the classic “silent game”. In this game everyone stays quiet. The object is to see who can stay quiet the longest. After awhile there are generally pokes and giggles. Sometimes there are arguments about if making faces to get someone to laugh is a legal move or not. Generally though, a couple rounds of this game are enough to change the mood and the noise level in the car.
Also See:
Keeping the Kids Busy in the Car and on the Plane