Alphabet Road Trip Game | Fun Car Game For Kids

This fun alphabet road trip game is such a simple way to pass time in the car with little ones. I remember loving playing this game with my sisters when I was a child and it has quickly become my kid’s favorite car game as well.

If you have a long car ride with your kids coming up this is a must have game. With the printable game sheet it not only is fun to find the letters, but my boys had a lot of fun coloring in each letter they found as well!

It was great letter recognition practice for my 4 year old, we all had so much fun with this game on our recent road trip. I saved this game for the last leg home and was so thankful I did! It took up a solid 30 minutes of drive time and both my older boys and my younger kiddo loved it! At the end we added extra entertainment time by having them decorate the rest of the coloring sheet 🙂 

This was such an easy game to entertain my kids when we were all getting a bit restless. It was an awesome alternative to adding in extra screen time during our drive and allowed our entire family to enjoy some time together.

There are so many fun car games to play including this USA license plate game (where you find license plates from different states, it is really fun for older kids) and this road trip scavenger hunt (which is a perfect activity if you are traveling with younger kids). We will be adding road trip bingo to our next trip as well! This A to Z alphabet game is a great game to add to your next car trip and is so fun to play with the whole family!

How To Play This Alphabet Road Trip Game

It is important to set ground rules before you play because there are a lot of variations to this game! Our house rules are below but I also listed some things to think about so you can make your own car rules 🙂

Print off the A to Z template that is linked later in this post, we like having one for each person in the car

The first player to find the letter A at the begging of a word and not on a license plate calls out the word and colors it in on their printable alphabet sheet- for example if someone sees a Burger King they will yell this out and then color in the letter “B” 

If the next person finds the word before we pass it they also get to color in that letter

Going in alphabetical order we repeat the above steps until the whole alphabet is completed

It is always fun to have a prize or little treat to celebrate either the first person completing the alphabet or when the whole car gets their alphabet completed

Things To Consider When Making Your Own Rules

• Does the letter have to be at the beginning of the word? 
• Are you okay with it appearing anywhere in a word? 
• Do you have to find the next letter of the alphabet or can you find them in any order? 
• Do license plates count?
• Can other people in the car claim the same word after it is called out?

Different Ways To Play The Alphabet Road Trip Game

• You can make this a cooperative game by having the whole car work together to complete the alphabet
• If you have a lot of people in your car it is fun to make 2 teams, one team looking out one side of the car and the other looking out the opposite window
• If you have little ones that aren’t yet recognizing their alphabet pair them with an older child or adult to help them with letter recognition- my 4 year old loved coloring in the letters once we found them
• If you aren’t around a place with a lot of road signs or are playing with little kids you could do a spin off of the classic road trip game, I spy with my little eye. For this variation you find objects that start with different letters of the alphabet for the other car riders to find. For example you can say “I spy a yellow car” and when your child finds it they can claim the letter “Y”. 

​Free Printable Alphabet Game

All you need to do is fill out the box above and the printable classic alphabet game will be emailed directly to your inbox. This email will contain a link to a downloadable PDF. This printable is for personal use in your home or classroom. 

I printed off and let my kids color the letters in with crayons & markers on our most recent trip. However, if you travel frequently it may be worth laminating and using dry erase markers so you can use this simple game over and over. I really hope your family enjoys this fun road trip classic!

Other Travel Tips That May Be helpful

Here are some of our family’s favorite screen free activities to do during family road trips

If you are new to long road trips with young children here are some of my best family road trip tips and tricks to not only survive the ride but maybe even enjoy it 🙂

Snacks are a must on road trips and here is one of my go to travel hacks that I do every time we hit the open road

We are always looking to add fun road trip games to our road trips and would love to hear your family’s favorites!