Want to know the secret to keeping your sanity on long road trips without screens? It’s easy: make a travel binder filled with road trip games!
Sure, family road trips can be long and boring, but with a little planning ahead, you can have a fun selection of printable road trip games that will keep your kids (including preschoolers, tweens, and even teens) occupied for hours.
Today, I’ll show you how to easily make a DIY travel binder (no craftiness required) that’s a perfect way to store and use printable road trip games for kids.
Your whole family will thank you for this fun activity!
Tip: Want to make this even easier on yourself? Grab this bundle of curated printable road trip games I’ve put together. Each of these is kid-approved and practically guaranteed to give you some peace and quiet on your journey!
Grab the bundle of 30+ road trip games here!
Road Trip Activity Binder
I have four children, and we’ve done quite a few road trips together since we have family 800+ miles away in North Carolina; that’s a good 15 hours or more on the road from our home in New Hampshire.
Several years ago, I came up with this road trip activity binder. I made one for each of my children (no fighting!), and it was a total hit! We have used them year after year ever since.
It’s simple and filled with fun road trip games to play. It did a great job of keeping them busy…and off their tablets and phones!
The best part of this DIY kids travel binder is that you can add whatever activities you like and easily personalize it for each child.
Plus, you can reuse it again and again for future road trips, just like we have!
Supplies
- 1/2″ binder with a clear pocket in the front (I found 6 at BJ’s for $8)
- Heavyweight sheet protectors
- Dry erase marker per travel binder *dark colors work best
- Craft cord (I used a shoelace-type craft cord at Walmart that works great)
- Hot glue gun & glue sticks
- Decorative mini duct tape
- Free printable travel binder cover and activities – I have dozens of downloads below!
- Optional – map of the route you’re traveling through Google Maps or other software (see more below)
How to Make a Kids’ Travel Binder
You can download the free printable cover for your child’s travel binder by clicking here.
Write your child’s name at the top.
Insert this cover into the front of the binder.
Now, make a simple holder for your child’s marker.
Cut off a 2-3-inch section of the decorated duct tape. Cut a small 3/4-1″ section of tape and add to the middle of the long piece’s sticky side.
Do this again for a second piece.
Using the dry erase marker as a guide, attach the tape to the middle top of your child’s travel kit binder.
Add two pieces of tape to the sides – this adds extra strength to the marker holder.
Now, cut off about 2.5 feet of craft cord (you’ll need enough cord to comfortably reach around any pages in the travel kit binder).
Tie one piece to the top of the dry-erase marker. Hot glue this in place.
Tape the other end of the craft cord to the marker holder.
And you’re done with the attached marker and holder for your travel kit!
Map Activity Road Trip Printable
The free printable map activity is my favorite part of this kids’ travel binder. It’s perfect for elementary-aged kids on up because they can follow along as you travel.
It’s a great way to teach kids how to read maps in this age of GPS, too! Plus, you’ll hear less “Are we there yet?” with this simple addition!
I did include these map printables in my younger children’s binders (Josh, age 6, and Luke, age 4) simply because they like to follow their older siblings, and I knew they would still enjoy it.
Kids can trace the route with the attached dry-erase marker, and they’ll love seeing the progress you’re making.
I recommend going a step further and planning out your route, including stops, so your kids can see exactly how far it is between stops.
To do this, go to Google Maps or some other map program. Map out your route and stops.
Then save and print out pages, depending on how long your trip is.
Our trip has five pages for each way – 5 for traveling to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and 5 for traveling home. I uploaded each page to the free Paint program and added stars to mark where our stops, with a big star for our destination.
This simple road trip binder printable alone will make your trip easier!
Free Printable Travel Games for Kids
Last, but not least, print out activities for each of your children, depending on their ages.
Including Bingo…
And a travel journal…
There are tons of free car ride games for kids out there. Here are just a few I recommend:
My Top Travel Activities
- Search for traffic signs with my free printable iSpy travel game
- Play this fun travel bingo game
- Grab our own fun License plate game with a map right here.
- Playdough mats can be great for travel – just pack a can or 2 of playdough
- Continue logging their summer reading with these fun postcards!
- Inspire creativity with a flower-themed coloring mat
- Pack up this mini coloring kit for little kids
I Spy / Scavenger Hunt Games
- Meander & Coast – travel scavenger hunt for tweens
- Make and Takes – for preschool – elementary age kids
- Live Laugh Rowe – summer vacation I spy printable
Bingo Games
- From Playdough to Plato – bingo + scavenger hunt, story starters, I Spy, and more
- Crazy Little Projects – road trip bingo for younger kids
- Everyday-Family – road trip bingo cards
Coloring Printables
- Disney – often has printable games and activities
- Crayola – includes tons of other games like mazes, bingo, + more
More Printable Travel Games & Activities for Kids
- Woo Jr Kids Activities- printable pinwheels, printable madlibs, and summer reading prompts!
- Education.com has a huge selection of activities, including fun facts for each state, bingo games, drawing tutorials, mazes, matching games, and more.
- Mother’s Home has several printable road trip games, including hangman, tic-tac-toe, battleship, and more.
- Mom’s Minivan has over 100 fun car ride games and activities for kids
- Minitime has 20+ road trip car games to choose from
- Picklebums – cute free drawing prompts
- Country Cottage – Dr. Seuss cootie catcher
Get the Printable Travel Games Set
Get everything in one place with the Ultimate Travel Games Bundle!
This exciting set features 30 printables, including:
- 7 iSpy games – including restaurants, car models and colors, highway signs, and more
- 1 license plate iSpy
- 2 scavenger hunts
- 9 bingo pages
- 4 classic games – tic-tac-toe, dot connecting, battleship, hangman
- 5 drawing prompt pages
- 2 travel journal pages
- 1 reward coupons page
While this handy travel activity binder and road trip printables can’t make the miles disappear, together, they can definitely help make the whole trip go by faster and smoother for the whole family.
Happy travels!
More Road Trip Tips:
- How to Take a Road Trip with Kids & Not Go Insane
- 7 Tips for Road Trips with Kids
- 49+ Brilliant Ideas for Enjoying a Road Trip with Kids
- Your kids might also love this super-easy-to-make DIY Travel Coloring Kit!
Just pin it below to find the instructions later!
Tammileetips says
This is a great way to keep the kids entertained in the car. I remember how bored I always got on road trips growing up.
Scott says
Such a great idea. We used to buy coloring books for trips, but I like your idea better because it is personalized for the route!
Cathi says
I love this idea! We’ve started a no tech in the car rule with our grandkids. It had gotten to the point where they fought over an iPad during the less than 10 minute drive from our house to theirs. I think a version of your travel binder will be fabulous even on our short everyday car rides!
valmg @ Mom Knows It All says
Using the map for the route you’re taking is a great idea! I’ve never seen anyone do that before.
Andrew says
Great idea! I have to admit, I still like to play the scavenger hunt game while on road trips! 🙂
Glenda Cates says
I love this and would not only be using it for travel but for local trips as well. As it would keep kids entertained no matter where you are going. Plus if you end up somewhere and have to wait for any amount of time they could bring it in with them to work on. So I would like to thank you for taking the time to share it with us.
Erika Bragdon says
Great idea, Glenda! Thanks!
Nichole Moreland says
Can you please elaborate more on how you printed the map? I am trying to put a binder together for our family vacation and I cant figure out how to get as nice of a map as you have!
Thanks
Erika says
Hi Nichole, I used Google Maps to plan out our road trip route. There’s not a built-in way to print out whole map segments, so I saved a screen shot of each segment. (The number of screen shots would depend on how long your trip and how detailed you want the map to be.) Then I opened a new custom “design” in PicMonkey (sized 2550×3300 pixels – the size of regular paper), uploaded the map screen shot, and added text and graphics (a star for stops, along with the town/city, etc.)
Hope that helps! Good luck on your trip! 🙂
Heather Gaughan says
Hi Erika! I am a travel agent and have a blog. I linked back to your site for an entry I was doing about travel binders. I included your site as one to check out for tips and forms. I hope that’s ok!
Amy says
This is awesome! I will definitely be making a binder for each of my kids. We have a 12 hr road trip next week. Thanks for the list of great printables also.
Erika says
Have a great trip, Amy!
Bridget says
We are from NH now living in SC. About to make the summer trip back to NH for a few weeks. Thank you for the tips! My 9 yr old is going to love the binder idea!!!
Erika says
Hope you all enjoy it and have a safe trip! 🙂
Jenifer Yoon says
Thank you for putting the Road trip binder and links together.
I’m not sure when you originally made the post but you may want to go back over the links, several of them didn’t work or link to anything or for I heart organizing there was no license plate game. I just wanted to let you know.
Erika says
Yes, it’s been a few years and we do need to update it. Thanks for letting me know.
Mallori says
Where did you find the license plate game with pictures of the license plates?
Erika says
The original version doesn’t appear to be available any longer, however we’re finishing up our own kids travel set with a similar option and much more! It will be available very soon!
SNK Social Fame says
Thank you for the introduction of a range of information that is very interesting to see in this article. Thanks for sharing this information.
Rice says
Where did you find the picture for the front page?
Erika says
Hi Rice, I made it myself from a graphic image. It’s been a long time though. Hope you like it!
threads Bay says
This is a great idea for a travel binder! I love the free printable games too!
4pics says
This is a great idea for a travel binder! I love the free printable games too!