Long drives with teens are amazing. Most of the time. Set yourself up for success with road trip activities, including this printable road trip scavenger hunt for teens. The list is more advanced than the basic picture-type, and they’ll love the goofy, slightly icky, things to find along the way. You can avoid the bored backseat voices saying:
“Mom, he’s in my space! Tell him to get back in his own spot! Hey, stop eating my snacks!”
When I was a kid in the back seat of the family station wagon, I had a Walkman and a handful of cassette tapes. Now, teens have tiny, palm-sized computers with unlimited entertainment in their hands and can easily tune out the rest of the family for hours. But while I enjoy quiet sanity as much as any other mom, I don’t want my teens stuck in their phones for the entire drive.
Why Use Road Trip Games for Teens?
Some of my favorite family road trip memories are from the drive itself instead of the destination. Once, we turned around and backtracked 10 miles because she wanted us to see (and claim for her list) an alligator by the side of the road “in the wild”. That alligator turned out to be an old blown tire by the side of the road and made family history. “Florida alligator” (old tire) now holds a permanent spot in our memories and on our family travel scavenger hunt lists.
It’s my job to carry on the tradition of annoying family car games so my kids have side-splitting memories to pass on to their own grumpy teens. You don’t get funny family stories if everyone is checking their Instagram or watching You Tube videos.
Travel scavenger hunts keep teens occupied in the car.
Download Road Trip Scavenger Hunt for Teens
Use the download link below to save to your computer, then print as many as you need. Then add to your road trip travel binder so everyone has a copy.
Family interaction, YAY!
Bonus: download another another variation so you have one version for each leg of the trip. Printable Travel Scavenger Hunt for Teens. .
Travel Scavenger Hunt Rules
I do strongly suggest defining your rules beforehand, to avoid arguing. Yours may vary, but our rules have always been:
- Everyone finds their own item in it’s own place. One construction site can’t give everyone an orange construction barrel
- Finds must be verified by another passenger to prevent cheating. This might seem like an opportunity for someone else to deny seeing an item, but this resolves itself as they realize this works both ways.
- Only items seen during actual travel get marked as found. Food or bathroom stops where we are out of the car are “game pauses”.
- Game begins once everyone has had a chance to read the list, and ends when our destination has been reached. Most items found wins.
Thanks for meandering by!
Carla
BB
Thank you so much for sharing. This is such an awesome idea!