37 Things: Road Trip Games

This is just one installment of 37 Things a Man’s Gotta Do This Summer, our annual compendium of everything worth seeing, doing, eating, drinking and generally making time for in your neck of the woods between now and September.

Best friend, new friend, colleague, partner or — heaven forbid — parent, no amount of small talk will help you survive a drive longer than four hours. For that type of adventure, you’re going to need backup.

And by backup, we mean a proper road-trip game.

No, not the Alphabet Game or Slug Bug — we mean a game a grown man can get behind. Here are five that fit the bill.

The Game: You Fell Asleep
Requirements: An imagination, good memory and more than two people in the car
How It Works: Someone falls asleep. Let them sleep. Create a story while they slumber. Then, wake them up. Preferably suddenly, for effect. One person starts the story and then passes it on to another passenger, who must in turn continue the false tale. If you break character or stumble, you lose a point. If someone jacks up the story, any other member of the awake party may ask, “Are you sure?” In which case, the speaking party that messed up has to bow out of the round and loses two points. If the story is a successful fooling, everyone gets three points. Most points at the end of the trip wins.
Example: “I cannot believe that guy could feed his dog a burrito while driving a motorcycle. Is that legal? Do you think his dog only eat burritos?”

The Game: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Requirements: Film buffery. Knowing who Kevin Bacon is a definite plus.
How It Works: One player picks an actor. Any actor. The other players then have to attempt to connect that actor to Kevin Bacon via common co-stars. If you want to play pro rules (think of it like no spinning in foosball), no one can use JFK.
Example: Kevin Bacon and Margot Robbie: Kevin Bacon was in Sleepers with Robert De Niro who was in Shark Tale with Will Smith who was in Suicide Squad with Margot Robbie.

The Game: Fortunately/Unfortunately
Requirements: Humor, humility and a healthy mix of glass-half-full/glass-half-empty types.
How It Works: Person number one starts with a statement that goes, “Fortunately, [enter something fortunate here].” The next person has to follow with something unfortunate about that situation. Stumble and you get a strike. Three strikes and you’re out.
Example: Player 1: Fortunately, I don’t have to go to the dentist today. Player 2: Unfortunately, it’s because you have to go to the urologist immediately.

The Game: Would You Rather
Requirements: Limit-pushers are a plus.
How It Works: You remember when you used to play Truth or Dare and it was only really fun when secrets or sex got involved? This game is the same. One person asks, “Would you rather ‘this’ or ‘that?’” Just avoid obvious hypotheticals like, “Would rather eat macaroni salad or a stranger’s booger?” That’s easy: booger.
Example: Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?

The Game: Don’t Say It
Requirements: Attention and discipline. A long-ass drive.
How It Works: Pick five common words or phrases that no one can say. This is better for long trips because people forget they are not supposed to say the aforementioned “magic word.” When a person says the word or phrase, they are penalized somehow. Pitching in for gas or a snack fund, say. Or something more embarrassing, should you choose.
Example: Words that work well include the following: look, awesome, like, car, hey, time, pee and all its derivatives, and the name of the most annoying person in the car. “Hey [Wombat Hooker], you should pull over soon if you want to [keep the internal sea level from rising above a threat-level orange].”