What to do at night in a small hotel room in a small country town?

June 4, 2008 6:13 PM

My husband and I are going on a road trip this weekend and have plenty of places and things to do during daylight hours. It's just the two of us (yay, no kids!) and we'll no doubt chat all day during the drives, hikes, sightseeing. We need something to do between checking in and going to sleep. I'd like an activity that's cheap, and involves the both of us.

Nights are in prebooked hotels in very small country towns (that is, we don't have the option to keep driving until we need to sleep). We don't drink. One laptop between the two of us, with no guarantee of internet access. Apart from the obvious bedroom romps, what the hell else do we do during the night time? Normally at home, we (introverts) work (online), study(online), interact with the kids, he plays WOW (not installed on my laptop). Not big TV watchers.

We're Australian, married 17 years, 40+, travelling through Central NSW.

posted by b33j to sports, hobbies, & recreation (17 comments total)

Card games, of course. I like Mille Bornes myself, but maybe it's a good idea to just get a poker deck, some dominos, and books of card and domino games.
posted by muddgirl at 6:19 PM on June 4

Do you like to play cards? Or boardgames? If so, plop yourselves down on the bed, grab some wine/beer and snacks, and whip out the Scrabble board! You could even make it interesting by saying the winner gets a massage (or something naughtier).
posted by amyms at 6:22 PM on June 4

Bring DVDs for the laptop, bring popcorn, have movie nights!
posted by DarlingBri at 6:23 PM on June 4

Oops, sorry, I just saw that you don't drink. My suggestion still stands, but substitute a non-alcoholic drink for "wine/beer."
posted by amyms at 6:24 PM on June 4

My wife and I consider this type of trip the one time that we can splurge a little and not worry about "value for money"... With this in mind, we would be inclined to ring room service and order something scrumptious, drink the drinks out of the mini fridge ($3.50 for a pepsi!) and pay $17 to watch one of the in-hotel movies! :)

Otherwise, you'd be surprised at how much fun stuff like board games can be. My wife and I really enjoy monopoly on these types of nights, and I also recently taught her to play chess as well (she's getting pretty good!). The suggestion of DVD's on the laptop is also good (we curl up in bed and get extra pillows to prop the laptop up on the bed between our feet/knees).

Basically, just use it as a time to relax, chill out and do all the stuff you can't do at home because of work/life/the kids!
posted by ranglin at 6:39 PM on June 4

DVDs? Movies? The OP said that they're not big TV people.
I'm afraid if it's small country towns in central NSW, you should change "no guarantee of" to "guarantee of no" internet access outside internet cafes. That's been my experience anyway.
One of the best things my partner and I did on an overseas trip was to bring a5 notebooks and keep detailed diaries, which we'd do our best to fill in at the end of each day's sightseeing and compare them. Some years later those notebooks are as treasured a possession as any of the photos we took.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:45 PM on June 4

i imagine (perhaps wrongly) that there will be at least one or two restaurants open for dinner. might be nice to splurge on dessert and linger.

you can also watch dvds on your laptop, i'm sure. might be a nice opportunity to catch up on those classics you always meant to see, or share your favorite films with each other.

also, my friends and i always had fun playing various trivia games when the weather was bad or we wanted to stay home and save money. we would make some delicious snacks, pour some wine (or other delicious beverage). you can find them in most bookstores these days in the u.s. (in either the games or gifts section), not sure about oz.

two words: back massage

add three more: long hot bath

lie down outside and count the stars. see if there are any astronomical events going on that weekend.
posted by thinkingwoman at 6:53 PM on June 4

Take a nap. Have sex. Or if you want to be fancy, have sex then take a nap.
posted by SassHat at 7:03 PM on June 4

I think you should include some road games into the mix. And whoever wins the game in the car, gets to pick the activity for the evening. Personally, I'd play a very silly game of strip poker.
posted by saffry at 7:13 PM on June 4

Check out these threads. More.
posted by nax at 7:14 PM on June 4

I would find some really good out loud books for reading. I've enjoyed Bill Bryson's books because they're about travel [often -- A Walk in the Woods was a favorite] or a book you've both wanted to read but haven't had time. Read to each other, take turns with chapters. It's relaxing, good for snuggle time and if you do it right before bed, sometimes you'll have the same dreams. Alternately, bring some sort of awesome smelling lotions/unguents and take turns giving each other foot/back massages while listening to music you both like.
posted by jessamyn at 8:04 PM on June 4

Thanks for the ideas. I'm packing a couple of decks of cards, and the scrabble board. I thought I'd pretty much covered the sex and sleeping avenues. Eating is a given, restaurants out there - not so much. Not big movie watchers. The parlour games were an interesting idea, but I think those work better with more than 2 people. I'm interested if you have anything that hasn't already been mentioned.
posted by b33j at 8:08 PM on June 4

boardgamegeek has lists of really great two person games. Unfortunately it will be offline at the time I'm posting this.

They have "geeklists" on various subjects related to games that you can search. Here is just one list about games for new gamer couples.

Buy them in the states, of course, if you'll be in the states, and save a fortune.

Some recommendations off the top of my head:

Jambo
Lost Cities
Fjords
Tzaar
Hive
Travel Blokus


There are bunches more, of course. The ones I listed are pretty accessible and easy.
posted by mecran01 at 8:53 PM on June 4

Maybe I am not understanding the full context of the question. How much time do you expect to have on your hands, anyway? Am I misunderstanding the length of the trip, "going on a road trip this weekend"? You're over thinking and I am guessing you will probably be overpacking. Because you are sans enfants, you can leave. the. room. What a luxury! You will want to leave the room. Leave the laptop at home. Even the Scrabble. Scrabble is for long periods away in one place or very long flights.

It's been a long time since the Mrs. and I took the kind of trip you describe (ours would usually be over longer than a weekend) but the way it worked for us was (before ubiquitous internet)

1. Check in; head back out. Eat sometime during that. And when I say go out, that might mean nothing more than a quiet stroll or drive to the top of a hill; sit for a spell; go back. Have dinner as a picnic, maybe.
2. Write postcards. Even if you are seeing someone before the card arrives, everyone loves receiving a postcard.
3. Read. And don't tell me you don't read. You know how to write; therefore, you read.
4. Be bored. Yes, be bored.
posted by Dick Paris at 10:34 PM on June 4

Seconding the recommendation of Hive (you can play online for free at that link). A set is very nice to get, heavy tiles like dominoes, but you can also make your own set from card stock if luggage weight is a concern. My husband and I love this game, very strategic like chess but without all the psychological weight of chess history. I have a real set and carry a paper copy in my purse just in case I ever have 20 minutes to kill with an interesting friend.

Also seconding the recommendation to look these up on boardgamegeek.
Lost Cities is a card game that's great if you like press-your-luck, competitive scenarios.
Blokus is fantastic, though the smaller travel version is not as much fun IMO.
Quarto is another nice two-player game, but tends to go very quickly. A logic puzzle. (Normally comes with wooden pieces but can be played using the cards from Set, below.)
The Japanese game Go is another great one, and it's not hard to make your own paper set to start out with. (Obviously old favorites like backgammon, chess, cribbage, etc)
The card game Set is a lot of fun if you like visual puzzles.
Stix or Digit is a simple pattern-matching game.
Boggle the word game
Carcassonne is fun if luggage space is not a concern.

Happy to give more game recommendations if you're thinking you might like something more complex; all of these will play in under an hour, sometimes only a few minutes.


You could bring a couple of books to take turns reading aloud to each other. (And each person could bring some little hands-busier like knitting, woodcarving, watercolor, etc, to play with while being read to.)

We always get a book of the hardest crosswords we can stand, too.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:44 PM on June 4

What, no books or magazines? Finding new bookstores is one of the favorite pursuits on vacation in our family, but if you can't expect to come across one you might pack something light and fun to read. It's cheating to peek at it before you've left home, though.
posted by Lou Stuells at 10:54 PM on June 4

For your curiosity
Do you guys really read aloud to each other? It's great that that answer is here for the other people but it's really not my cup of tea - I find it hard to concentrate on audiobooks. Yes, we can and do read separately, every day even, but I thought it'd be nice if we did something together.

It's a long weekend in Queensland this weekend, so we'll be away three nights. It's winter here too, so sunset is at 5pm and it's bloody cold in NSW (for people from here) but nighttime walks are certainly worth a try - there's no light pollution where I'm going. When I say small country town, I'm talking, say two or three streets. Total. Small. Tiny.

Bedtime is normally about midnight, so that's like 7 hours locked in a room without the internet!

So, we're taking two decks of playing cards, scrabble and some dice (yahtze, zilch etc). I wasn't looking to spend any more money on games, the trip itself is a luxury. If we have hot monkey sex in the bath, I'm not telling you lot.

Thanks again for all your input. I appreciate it, even if I didn't mark it as best answer.
posted by b33j at 11:11 PM on June 4