This is a classic road trip game for all ages and groups of travellers, whether you're hitting the road as a couple, family or group of friends (though it's a bit tricky to do solo). The premise is simple: one player thinks of something that the other players have to guess, via 20 yes or no questions. You might start with 'is it alive?' or 'is it an animal?', and get more specific as you go. Take it in turns to think of things and you'll eat up that long car journey in no time.

Take it in turns to sing, whistle or hum a song while everyone else in the car tries to guess what it is. Best for groups of adults or teenage kids, you might want to whittle it down by choosing categories, like TV theme tunes or national anthems. You could even relate it to the country or region you're in - you'll be spoilt for choice in LA, or driving around the UK's northern cities like music-mad Manchester or Liverpool, home to the Beatles, could yield some good melodic results.

One for families that's inspired by a car journey game played by Bluey's family in the beloved Australian kids' cartoon, the rules to Rainbow Cars is simple. As you drive along, point out cars that match the colours of the rainbow. Start with red, then go through orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink (just to avoid arguments over the true nature of indigo and violet). Just the mere mention of Bluey is sure to get your kids interested in this road trip game.

This is a simple two-player road trip game. Count to three, then both shout out a completely random word simultaneously. Then do the same again, but shout out another word that relates to the first two. For example, if the words you both shouted first were 'monkey' and 'bread', you might try shouting 'banana' in round two - because it's a food that monkeys eat. No road trip game feels more satisfying than when you manage to yell out the same random word at exactly the same time. BANANA!

Whether you’re travelling with toddlers, teenagers or grown-ups, it's not always easy to keep everybody entertained. Enter I Spy, one of the best-loved games for a car trip and a great way to get children interested in the scenery and the route. The classic version is simply to find an item, tell everyone its starting letter and let the guessing commence. With young children, you can change it to the colour of the thing you’ve spied to make it a little easier. Items such as ‘road’, ‘clouds’ and ‘sky’ are all predictable choices, but keep it interesting with more unusual options like ‘glacier’, ‘valley’ and ‘pasture’.

This is an ideal road trip game for keeping kids engaged on a long journey, although it does require some forward planning. Make a list of things you’re likely to see on the trip and every time someone spots one, they tick it off their list. Think tunnels, cows in a field or your favourite fast food spot. You can play it as a group, or individually, with unique items to spot. To make it harder, make people spot multiples of certain things or put modifiers on them. For example, a cow has to be sitting down in a field, or it has to be white with black splodges to count.

There are a few names for this road trip game, which is also commonly known as the Picnic Game, but they all start in a similar way. One passengers says, “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing…” followed by whatever item comes to mind. The next player has to remember that item, and add something else to the list. As the list gets longer, the harder it gets to remember what's in the picnic. Getting it wrong results in instant expulsion, of course.

Remember this one from teenage sleepovers? Sure, 'Would you rather' has the ability to be a wholesome, PG-rated game, but it can easily descend into filthy hilarity - making it perfect for long road trips, particularly among groups of friends that want to laugh their way to the next stop. Start sensibly with a nice travel question - 'would you rather be able to speak every language in the world, or teleport wherever you want?' - then sit back and watch the game spiral into chaos.

This road trip game can take the boredom out of a drive at any age. Just pick a topic and try to name something that fits for each letter of the alphabet. Starter topics could be countries of the world (Albania, Belgium, Cambodia) or animals (antelope, baboon, capybara). When travelling with young children, this game is best played as a collective, but as passengers get older, you can go round in a circle for each letter or even get everyone in the car to give a different answer for each letter. Get ready to flex your Scrabble muscles if you get Q, X or Z.

When all other road trip games fail and you're in a car full of bored, squabbling kids, there's one trump card left to play: a game of ‘Let’s see who can stay quiet the longest?’ We're not saying it'll always work - this road trip game is something of a wild card - but chances are, everyone's in need of a few minutes of downtime. If it works, this is your best bet for finding some time to enjoy the open road in blissful silence.