Cards are the perfect travel games for kids and adults alike. Cards are small, light, and won’t raise suspicion with airport security. They teach numbers, patterns, critical thinking, strategy, risk, probability, and — best of all — the sportsmanship of being a good winner and loser. They can be packed in an easily-accessible pocket of a purse or backpack and brought out in airports, at restaurants, just before bedtime, or for some screen-free afternoon downtime. Card games can be played with one or two players or with the whole family, especially with a few house rules to modify them for play by younger kids or in teams when necessary. Here are five tried and tested card games to take with you on your next adventure.
Piratatak
Players try to collect six cards that fit together to build a red, blue, green, or yellow pirate ship. The gamble in this game is that players can choose to turn over one card or several to uncover the cards that make up the ship — as many as they dare try in a single turn — while risking, on each flip of the card, encountering a pirate card and losing their precious gold or ship cards. This game is great for families with kids as young as 3–4 years of age, as it is simple enough for the kids to understand but still fun for older kids and adults. Watch the delight when a 4-year-old beats her parents!
Sleeping Queens
Kings, queens, knights, jesters, and dragons are all in battle in this game, where the object is to collect enough queens or earn enough points to win the game. Each card plays a specific role: the queens start off sleeping and can only be woken by a king; the knight can steal an opponent’s queens; a dragon can stop a knight; a sleeping potion can put a queen back to sleep but can be stopped by a wand. Interestingly, this game was dreamt up by an 8-year-old girl who couldn’t sleep one night.
Phase 10
This game is from the makers of the family favorites UNO and Skip-Bo. A variation of rummy, players collect sets (multiple cards of the same number, like three 6s) and runs (straights of the same color, like a red 5, 6, 7, and 8). It is played in 10 phases (hence the name), with each phase presenting a specific challenge (for instance, one set of four cards plus one run of four cards). Players who do not complete the phase within a hand must try again while the players who complete it move on to the next (and increasingly more difficult) phase. Phase 10 is better for older kids playing with adults. The rules are a little more complicated and moving through the phases can take quite a long time, so it’s not as good for little ones with limited attention spans. Try this game on a long airport layover.
Sushi Go
This is a quirky but addictive game where players remove one card from their hand (7–10 cards, depending on the number of players), pass the remaining cards to the left, and then remove another card from their new hand, creating sets of different traditional Japanese foods such as nigiri (raw fish over pressed rice), maki (sushi rolls), tempura (battered and fried seafood or vegetables), and sashimi (raw fish served without rice). Each set is worth different points, which are added up to determine the eventual winner over three games. The illustrations are irresistible!
Spot It!
Spot It! is the “I Spy” of card games in which a player’s success hinges on announcing a match between two cards before an opponent. Each of the 55 cards in the pack has eight symbols, but only one matching symbol exists between any two cards. Being able to spot the matching symbol is only half the battle; saying it out loud before anyone else is sometimes the tricky part. Some adults find that they can spot the symbol first but find it hard to access the right word under pressure, so this game is one where the kids just might have the upper hand.
Fiona’s first overseas experience was at age 16 on a stopover through Kuala Lumpur. Equal parts terrified and thrilled, she has since traveled to 43 countries and worked in the UK and Turkey. She is based in Western Australia with her husband and three young children. Her family travels at every opportunity, locally and overseas.