The Aloha State

One of our favorite games to play on a road trip involves finding as many license plates from different states as we can during the course of our trip. Obsessively stalking the rear-end of vehicles on our 1100 mile drive to South Carolina last summer, we used sheets of paper, pencils, and a wooden clip board to cross off 43 of 50 states (Hang loose! We even spotted Hawaii somewhere near Lexington, Kentucky.). An inexpensive way to track our progress, inevitably someone melted a candy bar on our map and it fell into the sliding door jam…twice.

Since our old-school method of playing the license plate game, we discovered the State Plate app for the iPad. This looks like a fantastic download for high-tech families lucky enough to own the iPad. In the mean time, we were thrilled to discover a sturdier version of the U.S.A License Plate Game from the kid-experts at Melissa & Doug*.

West Virginia Spotted in a Parking Lot

Durable, colorful, and educational (in true Melissa & Doug form), the U.S.A. License Plate Game involves zero flying projectiles (game pieces are held together with tight bands, flipping to show a sample license plate design, the name of the state capitol, and two colors—red or blue). Used to play the traditional license plate game, track your trip itinerary, or pit family members against each other in a friendly game of trivia.

A perfect time to play the license plate game, holiday travelers were spotted from 26 different states as we spread our journey out over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Spotting Florida at a red light, Colorado on an on-ramp, and West Virginia in a parking lot, ideal places for license plate variety are rest stops, popular restaurants, and hotel parking lots. Assigning the kids with the task of flipping the game pieces and locating the states, we may have taken a ridiculous detour or two in the name of vacation-induced OCD.

U.S.A. License Plate Game

A fun Christmas gift for the road-tripper in your family, the U.S.A. License Plate Game is our de facto pick this year. No batteries required.

*We asked the folks at Melissa & Doug to take the game on the road with us this past holiday weekend. We’re not giving it back.

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