As families gear up for summer trips, it’s time to start thinking about entertainment options for moments of down time that you’ll undoubtedly have on your trips. If your family is like ours, you might be interested in bringing along some travel card games to keep your kids occupied.

Since we travel full time, being mindful of the travel card games we bring along is important. The ones we choose are small. That way, they can fit into our bags without taking up too much space. And we also like to choose games that are playable for all members of our family.

This post was edited on June 3, 2021

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Why we love taking along travel card games

It’s easy to rely on electronics to keep our kids occupied during travel. I’m not afraid to admit that my kids get A LOT of electronics time when we’re on the road. But sometimes it’s nice to have a non-electronics option when it comes to entertainment and games.

Whether we're exploring New York City, Bali, or Paris, we like having down time at the end of the day. And especially when we want to do some family bonding activities, making a game night is easy when you carry along a few fun games.

Another reason why we enjoy taking along travel card games is that they are a useful tool for homeschool activities. Many of our games help our kids build skills like math, problem solving, and strategy. And some of them also help build competition and cooperation skills. When you’re a slow traveling worldschooling family like us, you find creative ways to help your kids learn!

Click here for more ideas of homeschool activities families can do anywhere.

What to look for in travel card games

When you’re choosing your family’s travel card games, keep in mind that you want ones that are easy to pack. Our family prefers games that are just decks of cards, without any additional props. That makes it easy to transport. If you’re bringing along a card game in a hard box, you can take them out of the box and travel with them in a Ziploc bag. This makes them less bulky.

Another thing to look for in card games is the educational value of the game. As I mentioned before, we use card games as part of our worldschooling lessons. This means we prefer games that have a learning component. However, it doesn’t have to be blatantly educational. You can have a game that involves addition or multiplication, yet the point of the game isn’t about math. Or you can have a game that encourages problem solving or strategy, but is also focused on art.

Finally, a card game for traveling families should be fun for the whole family to play. Choose games that are age-appropriate for your kids. But also, don’t shy away from a game because you think that it might be too advanced for your child. You can always modify the rules to simplify it for younger players.

How to travel with card games

We travel with only a few card games at a time. But depending on how much space you want to allot in your travel bag, you can always bring more games. We know a full-time traveling family that travels with 7 kilos worth of card games! They use packing cubes for family travel to transport their games.

We like using the Bagail packing cubes, which you can buy on Amazon here:

Bagail 6 Set Packing Cubes

For our family, our games fit into a small packing cube, which I carry in my checked bag. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, and it also doesn’t add a lot of weight to our bag.

Our favorite travel card games (and why we love them!)

Here are some of our favorite travel card games to take when we travel. They also make great travel gifts for kids and families!

1. UNO

UNO is a classic card game. And the rules are so simple that even young children can learn it. We enjoy UNO because it helps our kids with simple math concepts like color and number matching. But there is also some strategy involved.

Buy UNO for your family here: UNO Game

2. Sushi Go!

One of our family’s favorite travel card games is Sushi Go! This matching card game has players build sets of sushi and nigiri to earn points. Besides the math component, there is also a strategy component too. Some cards will make you lose points if you have the least amount of them at the end of the game!

Here's a copy of Sushi Go! that you can buy: Sushi Go! - The Pick and Pass Game

3. Mille Bornes

Mille Bornes is an old card game that our family has been playing for years. It’s a race car themed game that has players collect miles and avoid obstacles like flat tires, speed limits, and accidents. This game is mainly chance-based, but there is some strategy involved too, like many of the other games on our list. This one takes a long time to play, so kids with short attention spans may have some difficulty playing.

Buy this classic travel card game to take along for your family trips: Mille Bornes Card Game

4. UNO Flip!

One game we recently discovered is UNO Flip! It’s played just like regular UNO, but there’s also a second side that can be played as well. We discovered this game at a café in Vietnam, and just love playing it as a family.

Here's where you can buy UNO Flip! for your family: UNO Flip

5. Set

Another card game that we recently rediscovered is Set. We bought this game before we left for our family gap year, but we didn’t end up taking it with us traveling until just recently. Set helps kids reinforce matching skills, and problem-solving skills. It’s easy to adjust the game play for younger kids by playing with a smaller set of cards.

Here's where you can buy Set: SET: The Family Game of Visual Perception

6. Bears Vs. Babies

We like playing quirky travel card games as well. Bears Vs. Babies is a fun one to play as a family, purely for the creative graphics of the game, designed by one of our favorite cartoon artist, The Oatmeal. Bears Vs. Babies encourages kids to use their creativity. There’s also a competitive element to the game, as well as strategy.

Buy Bears vs. Babies here for your family: Bears vs Babies - A Monster-Building Card Game

7. Deck of cards

Of course, no set of travel card games would be complete without an old-fashioned deck of cards. We bring along a deck of cards to play games like War, Go Fish, and Slap Jack. We also use the deck of cards for math drills by having the kids add up or multiply pairs of number cards. The Book of Cards For Kids is a good book to take along to give you ideas for games you can play with a deck of cards.

8. Apps for travel card games

If you don’t have much space in your travel bag to carry along your favorite game, see if you can find it as an app. We like playing Mysterium on our phone and iPad. And we recently discovered that Exploding Kittens, another popular game by The Oatmeal, is also available as an app.

Read my posts about worldschooling to learn more about how to travel and learn with your kids.

Stack The Scoops, our favorite of all the travel card games

During the pandemic lockdown, our family decided to create a new card game. Our then 9-year-old daughter came up with the concept, and my husband helped fill in the gaps of the game rules. Thus, our game, Stack The Scoops was born!

Stack The Scoops is a matching card game that has players build sets of ice cream treats to score points. Sets are created by matching a base, an ice cream scoop, and a topping within the same color card. Each card has a specific number of points, and scoring is done by adding up the total points for each set. You can double or triple your points for a set by playing special Double Scoop or Triple Scoop cards.

Click here to buy Stack The Scoops for your family: Stack The Scoops Family Card Game

When we initially created Stack The Scoops, we just drew out the cards on plain white paper and had our kids design the picture. But after playing several rounds, we decided to make the game into an actual product to share with other families. And that's how our company, ViBuGo, was created.

Fun for the kids

One of the things we love about Stack The Scoops is that it’s fun for our kids to play. The ice cream theme makes the game interesting for the kids. And the game play is competitive without being too cut-throat. The game plays fairly quickly, but the outcomes vary with each round. There’s not always the same winner with each round.

Help your kids build math skills

As you might guess, we like travel card games that help our kids build skills. Stack The Scoops helps reinforce addition and multiplication skills for early math learners. And even for older kids, there is some strategic elements to the game as well.

Cute and playful design

Another thing we love about our game is the design. In a past life, my husband spent six years of his career in corporate design. That experience came in handy when designing our game. It has the right feel of fun and whimsy, while still being polished.

Award-winning game

Since launching Stack The Scoops, we have been fortunate to have received several awards for our game. Tillywig awarded Stack The Scoops, "Best Family Fun." Mom's Choice Award and Creative Child also gave us awards for our game. Additionally, Stack The Scoops was included in the Toy Insider's Best Toys for Grade Schoolers 2021 Spring and Summer Gift Guide.

Order your set of Stack The Scoops travel card games now!

We think you’ll love our game too, and hope you’ll add it to your collection of travel card games. Stack The Scoops is available for sale on Amazon. The game costs less than $20 and is the perfect size for travel.

You can stay up to day with new developments and future expansion packs by signing up for our mailing list.

Making travel card games a must-have in your travel bag

No matter what game (or games) you choose for your family, it helps to have travel card games as part of your travel must-haves. Family vacations are often full of down time. And in those down moments, it good to have a couple of games to pull out to entertain the kids.

Travel card games help families spend time with each other and bond. And they can also help with building skills like strategy, problem solving, sportsmanship, and math.

What are your favorite travel card games to play with your family? Share them in the comments below. And don’t forget to buy a copy of our game, Stack The Scoops, too!

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