Planning a trip with your buddies would not be complete without a list of road trip activities to keep y’all occupied and take your minds off the long journey. Sitting down silently, fiddling with your phones and sleeping shouldn’t be all there is to a car trip, there are a ton of road trip activities for adults like carpool karaoke, and games, you can explore on a trip with your friends.
As adults, road trip activities can turn your boring trip into an organized and exciting adventure. As someone who prefers road trips whenever possible, having a plan before traveling is beautiful but being able to identify road trip activities for adults that keep you entertained and excited throughout the long drive is what turns that boring long drive into an adventurous and exciting journey.
Read also: Fun things to do on a long car ride
Are Road Trip Activities Important?
Absolutely! Road trip activities can be a lot of fun, and they can also provide some great benefits for your travel experience. Some of the most common reasons to take a road trip include exploring new places, meeting new people, and experiencing unique cultures.
Not only are these activities fun in themselves, but they can also help to break the boredom that often accompanies long bus rides or flights. During your travels, make sure to do something different every day by taking part in an activity that you haven’t done before. This could be anything from visiting attractions to hiking trails to going out on nature walks. When you’re not actively engaged in your surroundings, it’s easy for boredom and depression to set in. So stimulate your senses constantly while on vacation by staying active!
What can Adults do on a Road Trip for Fun?
While it is important to have a plan before you go, the sky is the limit when it comes to what you can do while on your travels. Here are some road trip activities for adults you could enjoy as a solo traveler or someone traveling in a group. They’re entertaining, educating, adventurous, and help to keep your energy levels high throughout your trip. Explore these road trip activities for adults during your long hour drive and enjoy a unique bonding experience with your travel partner:
Play a Debate Game
An interesting way to spark a conversation is by choosing a funny topic and debating it, having some people for and against the topic. To prevent this from turning into a fight, avoid sensitive topics like religions and beliefs.
Here are some debate topics: summer is better than winter, dogs are better pets than cats, and men are better teachers than women. make sure to pick a topic everyone can enjoy and relate to. This is a fun way to get your friends engaged, improve debate skills and learn from each other while on a trip.
Listening to Music
Music is a travel companion for everybody, it keeps you entertained as you dance and sing along. Music is one thing that brings people together creating a bond between them. You can create a playlist of all genres of music – hip-hop, pop, classical, country, blues, or whatever rhythm you and your friends can relate to.
Some road trip music includes: stronger by Kelly Clarkson, Fantasy by Mariah Carey, you & I by Jon Bellion, positions by Ariana Grande, own it by Stormy, and cardigan by Taylor Swift. These are entertaining songs that will get you to move your body to the rhythm and you can even create dance steps for them.
Create a Dance Routine
There’s always that one dancer among friends, while some people are better dancers when they sit, you can ask that person to lead in the dance routine while y’all follow. There are some fun dance steps to do while sitting like swinging your arms to the rhythm of the songs, tapping your feet gently, and swaying your body from side to side. This is fun and will leave y’all laughing and lighthearted.
If you are driving, it’s best to focus on the road but it won’t hurt to nod your head and lift your shoulders from time to time.
Play the “your last word is my first-word” Game
This game is an absolute delight and it’s a great way to improve your English, it is very simple. The rules are: you start a sentence and the person beside you starts a sentence with your last word almost immediately, for example, if I say “I love to listen to Taylor Swift”, the next person should say “Swift is a good songwriter” and the next person should start their sentence with songwriter almost immediately.
To make it more interesting you can add a penalty to it, this way everyone is thinking of ways to win as they won’t want to be penalized, and the competition will be high because everyone is actively participating.
Read also: Road trip activities for kids
Carpool Karaoke
Singing along to your favorite songs while driving is a way to keep the fun high. You can compile a list of songs that you and your friend would love to sing, download the instrumentals and record yourself singing alone. To make this much more interesting, get suggestions from your friend on the song they will like to sing.
You can also switch this up by downloading instrumentals of songs you guys don’t know too well, providing the lyrics, and asking everyone to sing along. Trust me, this is much more fun than singing songs you already know.
Listen to Audiobooks
You can quiet it down a little by listening to audiobooks on fiction, self-help, motivation, or a book on a particular skill that all or most of you are interested in. Listening to audiobooks is a fun way to learn and enjoy your trip. There are many ebook websites where you can get audiobooks but we recommend Scribd where you can get good quality audiobooks for only $8.99 per month. These books will make a great read for your road trip: the subtle art of not giving a fuck by Mark Manson, on the rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, and the alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
Play the while you were sleeping game
It’s a road trip and everything should be fun, no, there shouldn’t be a dull moment when one person decides to snooze off so in case someone falls asleep amid these activities, it’s time to fake a story. The rule is to make up a story that starts while you were sleeping for the snoozing friend. It’s a very fun game that will keep your travel buddies awake and busy plotting the story and will make the snoozing car mate feel like they’ve missed a lot.
To make this fun, assign points to the storyteller every time the sleeper believes their part of the story and give a reward to the highest pointer. This will bring out the storytelling skills your travel mates didn’t even know they had and this should be so much much.
Listen to a Podcast Series
Before you start your trip, one thing you should do is download a podcast series so you don’t get stranded if you go out of service on your trip. You can download fictional, non-fictional, true crime scenes, travel, and even documentary podcast series – any podcast series that fits your style and can keep you entertained for the rest of your trip. Travel tales by afar is an interesting podcast to start with, they release deep travel tales from different transformed travelers every week, and there are so many enjoyable episodes in this series.
Check out these road trip essentials for kids
Visit a Local Tourist Attraction on your way
It’s the journey that matters so why not make the most of it? Visiting a local tourist attraction on your way is a good way to learn a new culture and the history of the town you are passing through. It is also a fun way to pass time, stretch your body, and create memories. Don’t forget to take pictures of artwork if you are visiting a museum.
You can stop by a famous local tourist attraction like a museum, restaurant, Mountain, river, or maybe a natural spot for lovers or family. To make this even more interesting, take turns filming and taking pictures of each other in this tourist spot.
Also, see 100 thought-provoking road trip questions for couples to help you enjoy your next couple’s trip.
Hike the Local Mountain
Hiking is best for road trips because it keeps you energized and agile, it’s like stopping your trip to exercise but this time, in a very fun way. Walking to the top of the mountain and back while having a fun conversation with your travel companions can leave you lighthearted and extremely happy because of the release of endorphins by your body.
You can dance to music as you hike, have a conversation with your friends which can bring you guys together, or play a game as you hike, to make this more interesting you can decide to reward the fastest hiker, a reward will get everyone participating.
Here are 20 awesome and healthy lunch ideas to keep you and your friends energized and healthy throughout your trip.
Conclusion
Going on a road trip with your friends should be extremely fun, not a car filled with awkward silence and adults thinking of what to say or fiddling with their phones. This list of 10 entertaining road trip activities will save you from a long boring and quiet road trip with your companions. If you are driving, it is more fun if you take turns driving with your friends, it is also best if the driver pays great attention to the road but these road trip activities for adults are for everyone including the driver – it won’t hurt to play some road trip games while driving or even sing along with your favorite songs, enjoy the carpool karaoke or nod your head to the rhythm of the music.
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