Travel games – great ways to pass time on a long journey

Before the days of i-phones and laptops, travellers would typically carry some form of game as entertainment with them. Some maybe still do. It is often the last thing thrown into the bag when everything else is squeezed in, and there is room in a side compartment for a tiny travel game.

Travel games have often become a major part of the entertainment on a holiday, and almost without exception these games hold no interest or facination when we return home. Often basic, with no skill or judgement required, these are best enjoyed with the spirit of uninhibited freedom that comes from a long journey, or alternatively an absence of sobriety. Here’s a small selection of the travel games we have enjoyed over the years; feel free to share your favourites:

1. Yahtzee – possibly the most portable game of all. All you need is 5 dice, and a scorepad which can be produced on a bit of toilet paper if desperate. You can play with unlimited players and there is no scope for nastiness to opponents in this game; an important bonus if playing with a competitive partner.

2. Pass the pigs – another classic, with nothing more sophisticated than two plastic pigs that you roll and score according to how they land. Again, no chance of shafting your opponent, and when else will you be able to exclaim “I just got a double leaning jowler!” and make perfect sense to your immediate companions.

3. Chess/Draughts. The old classics, they require long stints of attention that may not be associated with a holiday. One small variation that I enjoyed with a magnetic set was a game of underwater chess, where we dropped the board to the bottom of a pool and then dived down wearing goggles and snorkel to make a move. A twist on the game that encourages quick play.

4. Grass. Has anyone out there heard of this game? It’s a card game, from NZ I think, that is all about dealing in grass, as the name suggests. You can be busted, get stoned, have the “heat on”, or utterly wiped out. A game to really stitch up your opponents, and it comes in a nice straw bag. The best part of the game may well be explaining rules to customs officials when they search your bag. It has kept us amused on many a trip.

5. Any cheap board game, often the tackier the better. We picked up a really cheap board game with dice before we started the Trans-Siberian railway, and an ever growing number of competitors took part in the Omsk, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk races, among others. It became very serious, with conditions created to match the reality for each day’s race, as you can say from the shaving foam on the track to represent the snowy terrain in Irkutsk. Cheap Russian wine was on offer for the winners.

And of course a simple pack of cards can offer endless possibilities for entertainment. As we were always told as children, it’s up to us to make our own fun.