The Alphabet Game: A Road Trip Classic & 5 Variations For MORE Fun!

The ever-popular and classic Alphabet game. Keeping families and friends from being bored since..... well, since road trips happened... Anyway, I found that while the game is fun in and of itself, it can become dull when you play it every trip, so I came up with a few variations to keep it interesting! Keep reading after the jump!


So, in order to learn variations, you should learn how to play the alphabet game altogether. You probably already know how to play it, but let me refresh you and give you the rules we play by on our trips with our youth group. So basically, you start with the letter A, you look around, and when you see a sign, license plate, or advertisement that begins with the letter A, you say the name/word you saw outloud and before anyone else in the vehicle, and you get that letter. You then move on to B, C, D, etc... until you get to Z and whoever gets there first, wins! We play by the rules that you can only use the beginning letter of words, with the eXception of X (see what I did there?); we let any word that has the ex- prefix count as "X". Any letters outside the vehicle are free game, that means road signs, license plates (beginning letter only), semitrucks, car names, etc. We play it every youth group road trip, but I can admit, it can lack entertainment after playing it so much! So read more for my 5 variations after the jump.

The Alphabet Game keeps people occupied as is, but if you play it every road trip, it can get old. Here are 5 ways to spice up a classic that I came up with!

1. Switch make the game last longer by playing to Z, and then backwards! Ex. X, Y, Z, then Z, Y, X, ..., A! It can get challenging to get the ending letters so close to each other, and often times it can become anybody's game when someone gets stuck on those!
2. OR just start backwards! Sometimes you may start in a city and move to the country, or vice versa, and know that there will be less signs and, therefore, less letters, and that means a tough time finding letters. It's just a fun way to mix it up, too.
3. Alpha Attack! - A game style where there is the ability to prevent others from getting letters by calling out the letter/word before the person on that letter does. So, if a person is on "S" and you see an "S" word they may call, if you call it first, he/she can't use that towards their alphabet count. It'll make the game even MORE competitive and hopefully, make the time in the vehicle pass by faster.
4. Spell It! - Decide on a word, or a series of words, maybe the location you are going to, that you will be trying to spell instead of going through the alphabet.
5. Scrabble Scoring - use the scoring from the ever-popular Scrabble's tiles when trying to spell a word!

Do you have any variations you play with? What other car games do you play? Let me know in the comments below! :)