Subscribe: Car Games for the Family: Brain Quest
If you are going on a long car trip with the family, you’ll want to bring along Brain Quest for the Car, from Workman Publishing.
Brain Quest is a series of cards, including suggestions for games involving the cards, with questions and answers that enlighten and amuse. Brain Quest for the Car contains 1,100 Questions and 1,100 Answers “all about America.”
There are two packs of cards, each joined at a corner so you do not have to worry about losing individual cards. You can keep your game as simple as quizzing an opponent or another team, or you can try one of the six fun games that draw upon the cards.
The cards are geared for ages 7-12, but I think most kindergartners could participate as a team member. Brain Quest also makes flashcard games for children as young as 2 and has games based on activities, such as bath time, bed time, reading and other themes. You can have more fun with features like Stump the Genius at www.BrainQuest.com.
With Brain Quest for the Car, you can also play games with specific states, to match your road trip route and generate excitement about your destinations. Brain Quest for the Car is the perfect compliment for a stateside vacation.
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WANT IT: Brain Quest for the Car is available for $10.95.
WANT MORE TRAVEL TIPS: Check out our Summer Travel Guide to find the best gear for traveling with babies and children.
WIN IT: Three lucky readers will win a Brain Quest for the Car travel game. To enter leave us a comment with your favorite road trip game by 11:59 EST on July 15.
Want another entry? Click here to find out how to double your chances!
We love to look at the license plates and see how many states we can find.
favorite game is slug bug!
I need this something awful
Our favorite car game is Fortunatly, Unfortunatly. We laugh the entire ride.
I have fond memory’s of road trips when I was a child playing the License plate game.
Okay…this is not a real game but one that evolved in our family. Here in the NJ/DE area there is a bus company called “Peter Pan”. Whoever sees a Peter Pan bus first calls out Peter Pan and wins a point, but you better be sure, because if you call Peter Pan and it is some other bus with green trim, you go back to zero! Highest score at each rest stop gets choice of treat or option to switch to front seat if tall enough.
Slug Bug
we mostly sing, no games
guessing game
The license plate game of course!! That was about all we had when we were kids…
Usually movies as opposed to road trip games.
Our favorite road game was one we invented, called Chain Reaction. It was a word game. One person started off with a two-word common phrase (i.e. Dog-House). The second person took one of the words and made a new phrase (i.e. House-Boat). The next person from there on out got the new word to use (i.e. Vacation-house, summer-vacation, summer-time, time-flies, etc. . .). You can’t use proper names, you may use a short connecting word or two, and you may use homonyms. It chews up time in the car!
Because I love Toyota Prius’s so much my husband came up with “The Prius Game”. Whenever you see a Prius you shout Prius! If your wrong you lose a point. Our kiddos(4 and 7)love it and it keeps away the “are we there yets?”
License Plate, definitely!
Guessing game.
We bring along trivia cards for the grownups and teens. The younger kids usually play with some travel magnet kits.
gkstratos@ yahoo.com
License Plate game of course!!!
gratefulsoul at hotmail.com
Mom and Dad’s favorite is the license plate game. The kids prefer Guess Who!
We play the ABC game with Billboards and building signs.
Our family favorite is the license plate game too.
The Liscence Plate Game, and we also pick a color and see how many vehicles we can spot that are that color. Thanks so much for the opportunity.
License Plate and Slug Bug
Rubberneckers. It is a portable card game that gives each player a list of random things to look for. Sort of like a scavenger hunt on wheels!
I spy . . .
we play slug bug.
My kid and I just love singing really loud!
This, of course, drives my husband crazy since we sing really bad but it’s so much fun!
The kids all find signs w/ a letter in the alphabet- in order.
We try to count UPS and Fed Ex Trucks and whoever sees it first and calls it, gets to count that one on their tab.
This Brain Quest Game sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks for this giveaway.
We like the Alphabet Game” You start by calling something you see that starts with A, then B..you get it.
My daughters like to play Slug Bug, lol
Something like I Spy…but its actually I see -
Just singing…
When I was a kid my favorite game was to find cars with licence plates from all 50 states. Whoever got the most my mom would give a little toy to. My kids and I play this game now.thanks for the contest
My favorite road trip game was trying to find license plates from all 50 states.
I Spy
missing head lights
As a kid, my favorite was Punch Buggy. We would keep score all summer long. Although I guess it’s a whole different world now with the new bug out there.
we always liked the license plate game. Living in DC you saw a lot of license plates, not just from around the country but even some from around the world.
We switch between I Spy….. and trying to spot Beetle Bug. This would be great to have for our summer trip!
We loved to play all sorts of things when we traveled, when I was little. We did the alphabet game a lot, as well as I Spy and Slug Bug. :) My dad would start singing ‘99 bottle of beer on the wall’, too!
I Spy was always a family favorite. We had a Car Bingo game when I was a kid, too, where you’d try to spot all the things on your card (I think they were plastic with sliding doors maybe? Or magnetic? I don’t remember). Anyway, you would find things like a cow, the letter Z, a gas station, etc. and try to get Bingo first. Fun stuff.
I Spy
Our two sons enjoy the mini-sized magnetic games.
We have checkers, tic tac toe, etc. Please enter me in your Car Brain Quest giveaway drawing. Thanks very much, Cindi
When I travel in the car with my siblings, my favorite game is “Don’t Drive your older sister nuts!” Haha!
We totally loved playing the alphabet game…
Since ours are young, we usually stick with the “Let’s See How Many ____ We Can Name” game, using animals, letters, shapes, colors, etc. It’s great fun!
Megret
meg.wilson@gmail.com
We used to play car bingo (instead of numbers, we’d have things on our cards like cows, semi-truck, etc)
We alway play the game Find A business with every letter of the Alphabet, it cant be a Billboard, it has to be the name of an actual business we pass. Its harder than you think since you start with A and cant move forward until you find it. Once once have completed the game with ever letter.
we love to play 20 questions.
I spy. Usually played with colors ie: I spy something pink and the kids need to find a pink thing etc.
Definitely I Spy
jceko77@yahoo.com
My husband and I usually love singing to loud music…or 20 questions. We’ll see what we do with our twin girls when they get older!
Count me in on this great giveaway! We love to play “I Spy” and also like to try to find license plates from all 50 states (NEVER happens, but it’s fun to try). Thanks for the chance!
Happy 4th!
Slug Bug :)
WE sing disney songs and play guess who
20 Questions is our favorite! Dad rules this game.
The License Plate game and things like “I Spy”. 20 questions doesn’t work too well yet, but that could be a good one eventually. The good thing is that our daughter travels really well – no need for a movie or anything else. We do enjoy radio dramas, though. To me, more entertaining than Books on Tape due to the sound effects and different actors. To the little one, good because there are kids shows out there on the radio that she really likes.
I can well remember playing the license plate game, although I can’t remember how it was played!
I spy or license plate game
We like the plain old alphabet game where you look for the letters in the road signs.
i spy with my little eye.. is the only one we know. LOL
I bring along cards about the states and we quiz each other on state flowers etc. This is a great contest – thanks!
We love to play singing games. ‘wheels on the bus’ ‘99 bottles’ that sort of thing. Great giveaway, thanks!
I just added this to my Amazon shopping cart to order…if I don’t win, and I’d rather win :-) We play “I Spy” in the car with our four kids.
We usually play 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon (I am not good at it but my daughters are). The other game we play is the alphabet story game…it goes like this…you start with a and says something like “andy got on a plane…and then the next person has to repeat what you said and say…andy got on the plan and bought a drink…etc. It can get really fun!
We still like I Spy both on short and long car trips
An animal guessing game where we get the first letter, and then can ask questions until we figure it out.
Me and my brothers used to play “beat the hell out of each other” on road trips. That game was awesome.
My kids like to make the truck drivers honk. We also like to play the License plate game and I Spy.
The License plate game is our favorite.
We like to play 20 questions, and the alphabet game.
We are boring, we play the license plate game or who knows the lyrics to this 80’s tune!
20 questions.
We like 20 questions.
we play the license plate game too, or watch dvd’s
We play the alphabet game. Look at signs and license plates for letters. Who ever gets from A-Z first wins.
We do sing alongs!
name the capital game!
I spy!
Our favorite is the alphabet game!
We have a card game called Rubberneckers that we bought for long car trips. It is a lot of fun…basically, you look for items outside the car window that match the pictures on the cards in your hand and you get points for each item.
i love the license plate game
We play Guess the Animal, I Spy, and random silly rhyming games that we make up.
We like I Spy, and also trying to recite famous speeches, like the Gettysburg Address – we all had to learn them in school but we forget so easily!
Well, the kids’ favorite game is I Spy, but MY favorite game is “let’s see how long you can be completely silent.” haha! Thanks for the contest!
We like “I Spy” or “Would You Rather.” Magnetic car bingo is also fun.
Cow poker–originally taught by to me by my grandmother.
My kids are just starting to get into playing I Spy.
We like the license plate game, but that is getting old! Thanks for the entry!
This would be such a great prize to give to my daughter-in-law – her family lives two hours away and they spend alot of time on the road traveling back and forward.
Thanks for this great contest!
I spy.. When I was kid, we would add numbers on the license plate ahead of our car and whoever does it correctly first, gets points. At the end, the one who gets the maximum points wins.
I’d love to win this! My favorite car game is looking for different license plates! Thanks for sharing!
We did the license plate thing.
looking for different license plates
THANK YOU GOD BLESS
We pick items before we start and if they see them they get money. For example,
American Flag .01
Yellow Car .05
White Horse .10
Train .25
My kids love to play Music games in the car, we play music and everyone wiggles their body and when the music stops they have to freeze, we also love to play I spy too!
kenzkween at hotmail dot com
My favorite travelling game is “Let’s See Who Can Sleep The Longest”!
I am a subscriber!
kenzkween at hotmail dot com
I have your button on my sidebar!
kenzkween at hotmail dot com
I SPY is big in our house!
Favorite road trip game is the Slug Bug/Truck game…nothing like gleefully punching your kids in the arm!
We play a word game called GHOST.
We listen to a lot of fun music and books on tape. I’d like to try some games, though.
Since my daughter is young I Spy is a perfect game for us.
I Spy and Slug Bug. :)
Just whatever strikes our fancy, state license plates, find something red, etc.
We do the alphabet game. But the sleeping game is my favorite. :)
Our family’s favorite road trip game is “I Spy”. Both my 4 year old and my 7 year old love this game and participate fully. It is a great game to teach the younger kids to be observant and to recognize shapes and colors.
I spy. Thanks
i want to win
abc order found only on license plates
Our favorite road trip game (we have little ones) is “I Spy”. You have to be quick- or you’ll miss it!:-)
We play the Alphabet Game. You have to find the letters of the Alphabet in signs, license plates, etc. First one to Z wins. We always got hung up on Q’s! Great giveaway! Thanks for offering!
~Tanya
the4moyers(at)msn(dot)com
We also play the alphabet game.
Our favorite road trip game is to do mad libs. Someone always ends up peeing in their pants, which isn’t a good thing, but it’s all good fun.
I think eye spy is our fave game
Eye Spy is the only game we’ve ever played, so this would be great!
I remember when my kids were younger, we would use the brain quest series and we are talking over 10 years ago. Great product.
eye spy =)
This would be so much fun to have to play with my class. Growing up we always played the ABC game – looking for the letters of the alphabet on signs + stuff. I think we mostly played to keep my dad awake when he was driving hours and hours to the beach! :) Thanks so much!
black dogs
I love the I Spy game, the kids love it, thanks!
I love the alphabet game…where you see who can find all the letters of the alphabet in order first!
We like to find things with a theme or color!
My favorite game is Beevo where you get a point for seeing a white horse,a bale of hay on a wagon or a man with a white beard and calling out beevo before anyone else.
My favorite was to find words on a sign that started with each letter of the alphabet. Or use the letters on a licence plate to make a phrase on a topic.
bingo…we use markers, paper and cards
We used to love the Slug Bug! game until I got hit too hard and there were tears.
we like to play travel bingo. we make our own games up to make it even more fun. plus no card has repeats.
One of our favorite games to play on a road trip is to look at licence plates and using the letters make a word. The word has to contain the letters in the license plate in consective order. This is fun, and sometimes makes our brains hurt!
We do the alphabet search game, I have “A”, I find Apple sign You have “B”, you can’t find anything that begins with the letter B, so you’re out! The next person must start withe letter “B”. Passes the time..
BrainQuest really IS an old favorite. Great giveaway!
I Spy! It’s one of the only games I remember from when I was young and play now with my daughter.
some of my fondest memories of my childhood were road trips with my mom and dad and 4 sisters. We loved playing road trip bingo. Now, my kids are playing it. (and witht he same bingo cards that I played on with I was a kid).
License Plate tag. We loved that. Using letters from the alphabe. A, B, C, stuff like that.
We would play………I went to the zoo and saw (enter an animal)…….then the next person would say “I went to the zoo and saw (repeat what the first person said and name another animal). This would continue and players would drop out if they failed to remember all the animals. With five of us girls playing it was fun.
Sometimes we play the rhyming game in the car. I’ll say a word and my kids (ages 4 and 7) shout out as many words as they can think of that rhyme with it. Sometimes we just say a letter and the kids start listing as many words as they can think of that start with that letter. We also play “spot the milky moo” truck — that’s what my younger son calls the milk tanker trucks with a picture of a cow on the side that we see here in WA. We’re definitely ready to add some trivia games in to the mix! Would love to win this game.
We sometimes play the alphabet game, looking for letters of the alphabet in sequence in signs and license plates.
When my sister and I were kids, we drove 22 hours (straight thru)to NC! Mom always bought us those little tablets that you write on with the plastic pencil and then you lift up the plastic sheet to erase. We would start out with hangman, but eventually start writing secret notes and seeing who could draw the funniest picture of one another.
We like to play the alphabet game. Start with any letter then take turns pointing out things outside your car that start with that letter.
I like playing eye spy and lisence plate bingo! yay
punch bug!
I spy of course!
We listen to books on tape
We have the kids “race” to find all the letters in order on road signs and license plates. We also do numbers and colors.
We counted cows
We’ve always enjoyed playing “I Spy” in the car.
We try to find license plates from different states and see if we can find 48 by the time we arrive to our destination.
we try and stock up the car with entertainment (dvds, video games, etc.) and snacks.
We love car trips, we try to bring many games along so the kids don’t get board or worse, argue. Brain Quest s one of our favorites. The kids love it when the adults can’t get the questions right!
The alphabet game is our family classic!
we do the license plate hunt and our own version of I Spy
Punch Buggy….
Favorite road trip game is the alphabet sign one
The license plate game. The winner is the one who spotted the most different states first. Thanks for the opportunity to win!
We love the game where you spot the VW bugs! Of course the state license plate game is always a fav!
Need for the grand kids.
We tend to either play the license plate game (my favorite) or we play a game where one person names an animal and then the next person has to name one that starts with the last letter of the first (my kids’ favorite).
I spy with my little eye. My daughter loves playing this.
My favorite car game is “Who Sings It?”. My fiance sucks at it, so I always get to choose where we eat!!! Thanks!
Twenty Questions
We play an alphabet game, “I am going on a trip and I am taking an Apple.” And the next person says, “I am going on a trip and I am taking an apple and a baboon (or any b word).” And so on.
Mom and Dad’s favorite is the license plate game. The kids prefer Guess Who!
liscense plate poker
Our favorite current travel games are travel bingo and the license plate game (seeing how many of the different states we can find) This sounds great!
listen to books on tape
we always take along car bingo, everyone enjoys it!!
flash cards of any sort
For a long car ride DH and I had these bingo like cards that you mark off things when you see them (truck, airplane, etc.). It was fun.
This would be great to challenge my husband and me with. We would probably still get a lot of them wrong. lol. I would love to try it though.
Looking for license plates
We like to play I Spy.
We play ‘Foreign License – No Taps’. Silly game from my childhood where you look for out of state license plates and yell it out without smacking anyone else in the car (hey, it used to get pretty fierce and exciting when we’d cross the Michigan state line!!)
The Alpabet Game….constantly! LOL
i spy with my little eye is out favorite!!
favorite game is jus listening to music in the car, not much of a game but effective to pass the time
I’ve never loved any car game more than license plate bingo!
My kids love to do I spy and we love to sing. License plate bingo is also fun but sometimes it takes a long time!! I just love spending time with my kids no matter what silly game we are playing!! Thanks for the chance!!
allenbth3@yahoo.com
We always played “I packed my bags…”. But I enjoyed the dots game, where you fill a page with dots and then each take turns making one side to a small box (one connect the dots). If you made a box with your last line you got to go again, and the one with the most boxes at the end won.
We play a family favorite. The values of things were created back when my parents were young and on their first road trip together. 25c to the person who sees the first deer. 50c for the 1st elk or moose, another 50c for the 1st really neat bird of prey, we even give up a dime for the first grain elevator we see lol This game is going on it’s 3rd generation (and prices haven’t gone up with inflation lol).
We look for the alphabet in order on signs. Thanks for the contest.
We try and find signs for the name of towns located elsewhere in the world — for example we drive the I-29 highway north and there are towns called Toronto (also found in Canada), Oslo (Norway) etc…
I like the license plate game (finding each state).
My favorite game to play while on the road is the ABC game where you look for each letter of the alphabet in order using billboards, license plates, road signs, etc.
Our favorite is the ABC game.
20 Questions
I’d have to go with the license plate game or the Punch Bug (don’t punch back) one, which isn’t all that fun if you keep getting punched in the arm.
On long road trips the license plate game is a favorite.
dlcwin[at]gmail[dot]com
We like to play “I Spy”.
We love to flip through the radio and play name that tune!
We count license plates and try to get one from each state.
We love to play I Spy with the letters of the alphabet
License Plate
We like to play “I Spy”
We played slug a bug. But my brother punched too hard and he would added chop a cop and slap a map. Ouch.
We play car bingo. I make up card with things like red car, black truck, yield sign etc. The first person to get bingo wins. I get small prizes such as small bags of baked lays, gift cards to Panera bread, markers, ect. The family loves this game.
Growing up, we’d play the ABC game. We went through the alphabet finding letters on signs, license plates, or anything we passed. I used to say I was going to get a personalized plate that said, “JQXZ” to help other ABC players.
We look for colors of cars… we note each color we see.
We usually try to find the ABC’s all the way to Z on road signs. This would be sooooo much more fun.
My parents loved it when we played the quite game.
One of us would choose a letter, one of us would choose a subject, and then come up with as many words with that letter.
We play find all state tags and alphabet signs where you must find every letter of alphabet in order on signs and who ever spots letter first gets it. Keeps us busy for hours especially q & z
We play “Spot the License Plate,” where you compete to cite license plates’ states before anyone else can muster the name.
we play i spy
we play the alphabet game, with various things. like animals, or household items, ect
We search for the letters of the alphabet on signs.
I Spy
Our family had the road bingo cards that we would play. Good memories!!
I Spy
We love roadtrip games. I think one of our favorites is travel bingo. Finding silos, railroad crossings, watertowers, etc… makes trips much easier.
Travel Bingo and I spy are the ones that we played we DD was small.
we always play I spy with the kids
Growing up my favorite road trip game was Car Bingo. We had a lot of fun.
Thanks for the great giveaway!
The license plate game or I spy!
You mean fighting isn’t a game? LOL We usually play I Spy.
My kids would love this game. We have fun playing the ABC game.
You have to name either eaterys, hotels or cars that start with the letters of the ABC’s
This brain quest game would be great to play in car when we travel 1200 miles one way for a wedding.
Thank you for a chance to win.
We like to play the alphabet game. You watch for road signs and have to find all the letters of the alphabet in order.
Guess the next state license plate
Ah, the memories! .. I’m having 40 year flashbacks! .. Count me in, too!
Since 4 out of my 5 kids are younger, we play the old standby of Eye Spy.
I Spy!
We like to play 20 questions!
We play punch bug
We play the license plate game
We loved to play the license plate game, but the most difficult part of the game was remembering all 50 states so we could list them.
We pick a topic like movies and we got to say a word that relates to the topic in abc order.
We play going on a picknic and work our way through to Z. I keep the kids interested by bringing some very silly things when it is my turn.
We always played I spy or see who finds the first cow, horse or other farm animal.
We go camping often and like to play left – right – center great for kids and adults…but in the car it has to be I-Spy as my four year old is able to play along
We love auto bingo. It brings back memories of when I was a kid. It kept me entertained for hours, and I try to bring that same luck to my kids!
The brain quest games are great.
We play punch bug. Whoever sees the most vw bugs wins the game. Thank you!
Colors of cars
who can be quiet the longest, hahaha!
License plate game is my favorite
i hope i win
Slug bug is our fav!
Alphabet game…you have to find a word on a sign, that begins with A,then B and so on…
I am with Teresa;…the alphabet game always kept the kids occupied the best!
Brainnnnss… I’d love to win the game! Thanks!
Find all state license plate tags.
Sooo educational and reminds me of my son loving to read Road Signs and was very good at it.
I would love this for my grandchildren.
Thanks.
we play state try to find the most state cars
My kids love playing I spy and now are getting old enough to play the alphabet game.