10 Best Family Travel Apps
We are gearing up for another 4 hour car ride to visit family this weekend. Last time we made the journey, I shared how to keep kids busy on a road trip. One of our ways to keep the kids occupied is with the iPad. There are a ton of apps out there that you can download before your trip. It’s can be overwhelming trying to find the right ones.
Today, I am sharing with you some of our favorite family travel apps that help pass the time in the car.
10 Best Family Travel Apps
1. Mad Libs: Mad Libs are fun for the entire family! Everyone can get involved and take turns asking filling in the stories. Price: FREE
2. Road Trip Bingo: Last trip, I printed out some Bingo sheets. They worked well but we ended up with papers all over the floor of the car. This Road Trip Bingo app allows up to 2 players to play side by side. This will be perfect when Ben gets a little older and can play along. Price: $1.99
3. Stack the States: Ethan loves geography and always asks where we are on the map. To encourage his love for geography, we added some educational apps to help. Stack the States makes learning about the 50 states fun! As you learn state capitals, shapes, geographic locations, flags and more, you can actually touch, move and drop the animated states anywhere on the screen. Carefully build a stack of states that reaches the checkered line to win each level. This app is geared more towards elementary school aged children. Price: $.99
4. Kids Map: If you are looking for an educational geography app for younger children, Kids Map is the way to go. Kids Maps puzzles are all about making educational learning fun with easy-to-use, colorful, geographic map puzzles for kids. The goal of Kids Maps is to help young children (ages 2+) learn geography through a fun, interactive, map puzzle game which uses colorful artwork, voice, sound & animation to teach. Price: $1.99
5. Highlights Hidden Pictures: We love Highlights and Hidden Pictures has to be one of our favorite things about Highlights! Instead of dragging a bunch of magazines with us across the state, Ethan can now find the hidden pictures right on the iPad. Price: $1.99
6. Sandra Boynton Board Books: Benjamin loves almost every single Sandra Boynton Board Book. I hate to pack them all with us so I downloaded them onto the iPad. Now we can read the “Going to Bed Book” before bed time, have fun with “Moo, Baa, La, La, La” {his favorite}, and do the “Barnyard Dance” whenever and wherever we want! Price: $3.99/each
7. iStoryTime: iStoryTime is an interactive storytelling experience delivered to the convenience of your mobile device and features a series of illustrated and narrated books created by parents for kids. With over 120 titles to choose from including favorites such as The Smurfs, Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, Peter Pan and Binky the Pink Elephant, iStoryTime books are an excellent tool for both educating and entertaining children ages two years and up. Price: Varies
8. Family Car Games: How-to-play instructions for 100 creative, fun & challenging no-equipment-needed family games. These games can be played anywhere: restaurants, doctors’ waiting rooms, at dinner. You don’t need “stuff” to have fun, just 2 or more people & Family Car Games. This app gives simple instructions for the games that you can sort by age, type of game, etc. When you find the game you want to play, put away the iPad and play! Price: $1.99
9. License Plate Game: My husband and I play this all the time on long car rides! Ethan is still a little young to point out the license plates but I know he will love it once he can. Price: $0.99
10. A-Z The Road Trip Game: This is a game that Ethan can play along with! It’s the classic classic family vacation pastime: the Alphabet Game. The app keeps track of the target letter for multiple players as well as offers three unique game variations (Classic, Full-Contact, Cricket) for more challenging play.
What are your go-to family travel apps to pass the time during a long car trip?
Looking for some more of our favorite apps? Check these apps out!
These all look like great apps. I remember how much I LOVED mad gabs as a kid! I will have to check out the app.
Mad Libs are so much fun and be so silly!
LOVE the madlibs app! That will be awesome once Owen is a little older!
I like to play Mad Libs with Ethan and just help with the words. He thinks it’s funny to hear the silly stories back!
LOVE Stack the States. We’re also gearing up for a road trip and I’m saving this post so I can update our apps. Thanks Steph!
Ethan is so into geography I had to a find a few that would feed that love!
I love these for our next road trip. I remember Mad Libs fondly from my childhood; it will be so fun to play it with my daughter.
Estelle