Many families today make road trips more bearable by stocking the car with seatback DVD players, iPods, and handheld gaming consoles.  “What a miracle!” friends have remarked.  “The kids will sit there quietly for hours watching their movies!  What did our parents ever do without them?”

What did they used to do before technology?  What can you do if the batteries run out or the device breaks?  What if you want to give your kid a little time to unplug?

Below is a list of websites with great car entertaining ideas for children (or adults too!).

1.   Mom’s Minivan. The Mom’s Minivan website is a goldmine of information on traveling with children.  There are hundreds of suggestions for how to pack your car for vacation and entertain children of all ages, including big kids, toddlers and preschoolers and babies.  The suggestions are creative, easy, fun and even free!

How about car bingo?  Mom’s Minivan has 8 bingo cards you can print for free.  Just spot the item on the road and you cross of a picture on your bingo sheet.  More free printables include tic tac toe games, scavenger hunts, cootie catchers and license plate games!

If you have a good pirate accent and some imagination, you might try the “Pirates of the Caravan” theme.

The driver is the captain, obviously. Other passengers in the car are always referred to as “the crew”.   Crew members are not allowed to call the driver “Mom” or “Dad”, but can only address them as “Captain” or “Captain Mom”, or whatever you order them to call you.  As captain, you can give orders that everyone MUST carry out.

Assign a First Mate, Navigator, or Lookout. Crew members can all choose pirate names if they wish.  Your vehicle is your ship. Be sure to name it too.  Then refer to it all day by it’s name. For example,  “Shiver me timbers! It’s time to refuel for The Black Pearl!”.

–Mom’s Minivan, “Pirates of the Caravan: Make Like Roger and Have a Jolly Good Time in the Car”

I found this tip that my preschooler will absolutely adore!

Surprise packages Prepare ahead with paper bags of items to be given out every 25, 50 or 75 miles — marked on a map with the location, it takes a little bit of preparation to do this but it REALLY helps young children. In each bag put a wrapped item — usually a small toy. Then in some of the surprise packages you can add juice or a snack, stickers and a piece of paper, or something pertaining to the trip that you can talk about.

–Mom’s Minivan, “Car Travel Games for Toddlers“

There is a lot of great mom wisdom on this site too.  I now know that apples dipped in Sprite will not turn brown.

2.  Family Fun. Family Fun has a list here of printable games and activities, including memory games, word searches and memory games.  There is also a good list of games to play in the car, like “Billboard Poetry.”

3.  Babycenter. Babycenter has a list of games for kids 2-4 and kids 5-8.

4.  Seussville. Here is a great FREE Dr. Seuss themed workbook with reading and math activities to play with younger children.

5.  Knock Knock Jokes.  This is a staple in our car with small children.  If you need a fresh list of jokes, you can try these kids jokes from Ducksters or here is an enormous list sorted alphabetically from ahajokes.com.

6.  Teenagers. If you have teenagers in your car, you might like these suggestions from Denise Witmer, Parenting Teens Guide for About.com.

And of course, not every idea has to be complicated.  Reading aloud or silently is wonderful and music is great too!  You might want to download a Ruly Mix to keep you energized.

What is your favorite road trip memory?  What do you do to keep you and/or your children entertained on long car trips?  Please share in the comments.