Packable games for a family trip

December 6, 2024 8:08 AM

I'm gift-shopping for a family getaway! I'd like to gift a small packable party game or shared activity to each adult member of a family, so we can try them together over the course of the trip. Suggestions?

3 couples age 30s - 50s, and 3 adult sons in their 20s.
All are competitive, smart, and funny.
Some are more academically-focussed and some are not as cerebral.
They're all a bit introverted and don't like to look silly.
Some of the partners don't yet know the family very well, so would love to help them feel included and let them shine.
Some of the adult siblings can be a bit prickly with each other.
Conversation / Opinion games would be ok, as long as they're not too intimate.

Prefer to avoid:
-Embarrassing silliness (they dislike the attention and silliness of Charades).
-Sexual innuendo or "offensiveness" (Cards Against Humanity)
-Detailed rules or world-building (Catan)
-Overly academic (Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit).
-Overly competitive where siblings might get annoyed at each other.

Great activity traits might include:
-Easy to explain, so you can start playing right away
-People can join or leave casually
-Simple enough that it's ok to be tipsy
-Nobody "fails" repeatedly or gets too embarrassed
-Not requiring niche knowledge
-Small packaging (they all need to fit into a suitcase!)
-We'll be at a resort, so beach games would be fine too - all the men are very athletic, although there's a big split of fitness by age.

Past hits have included Set, Jenga, Gin Rummy, Asshole, Balderdash (which was borderline "too cerebral"), and plain old catch with a baseball, frisbee, or football.
Several people love crosswords and sudokus, but not everyone does.

Thanks for any suggestions!

posted by nouvelle-personne to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (34 answers total)

I'd say Codenames is a good fit (we like Codenames Pictures better than classic). Fun, easy to learn, no required knowledge, fairly compact, suitable for 4-6 players. Game doesn't "break" if someone drops out.
posted by justkevin at 8:18 AM on December 6 [4 favorites]

I saw a Reel last week (lost now to the sands of time, such is the fate of short form video) where folks were playing Rafter Five, and it looked like a great, compact little game that could be enjoyed by groups of mixed age and mixed inebriation. In the Jenga family of dexterity games. Have not played it myself.
posted by phunniemee at 8:23 AM on December 6

Sushi Go! is great for this; I also like Cockroach Poker (I used to play this with friends at bars back when I was a drinker).
posted by Kitteh at 8:24 AM on December 6 [5 favorites]

That Escalated Quickly has Cards Against Humanity vibes but is only as offensive as the players themselves make it. If y'all like things really mild, we remove a few of the prompts to have a completely G-rated game for playing with other people's children and it still works fine.
posted by teremala at 8:26 AM on December 6

Maybe skull/skull & roses (yt explainer for how to play)? There's some social deduction to it so I suppose it has the potential for people to lose repeatedly and I guess it could get super competitive, but I think there's enough luck involved to mitigate either of those being a huge problem.
posted by juv3nal at 8:26 AM on December 6 [1 favorite]

Dominos is simple but so fun.
posted by j810c at 8:29 AM on December 6 [2 favorites]

Scout is perfect for this!
posted by jozxyqk at 8:38 AM on December 6

A deck or 2 of playing cards and photocopied cheat sheets of the rules for poker. Maybe a roll of pennies for everyone.
posted by theora55 at 8:38 AM on December 6

I second Cockroach Poker, and add Anomia, Taboo, Dixit, and Pictionary. For the latter two, just bring the cards & tally points with a die. You do not need a board. Have a great time!
posted by olopua at 8:40 AM on December 6 [1 favorite]

We always travel with Bananagrams.

You can DIY this, but I frequently give the actual Telestrations game as a gift because the whiteboard tablets make it easy. It's "Telephone", where it starts with a phrase and the next person draws it, and then the next person writes what they think was drawn, and the next person draws the phrase the person wrote, etc.

Travel cornhole and Portable Pong.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:48 AM on December 6

Set
posted by AbelMelveny at 9:07 AM on December 6 [2 favorites]

Also: Dutch Blitz
posted by olopua at 9:15 AM on December 6

BOHNANZA
Farm beans, harvest crops and trade your way to fortune in this card game classic.

A group of adults in their 30s to 60s enjoyed this game quite a bit. Definitely recommend. There isn't really a mechanism for dropping out - but you could always return someone's cards to the main pile.
posted by Glinn at 9:20 AM on December 6 [2 favorites]

the travel version of Qwirkle
posted by belladonna at 9:29 AM on December 6

We have had great success this year with Six Second Scribbles. A round is literally 60 seconds long and you can keep score or not, so it's fun to loop a reluctant family member in for a couple rounds. It's fun because everyone is a little bad at drawing silly things fast, so it feels like equal footing.

Avocado Smash is another one that we like. Fast moving, funny rules. Can be really hilarious if you've had a drink already.

Cat and Mouth is a physical game where you're launching little balls, so very easy to learn and start playing immediately. Very fun. There's always an unlikely person who turns out to be very skilled at launching the ball, and that's very exciting for that person.
posted by LKWorking at 9:40 AM on December 6

My family like Bananagrams which is a simpler form of Scrabble--you get a bunch of tiles and each person makes as many words as they can--most words win. It comes in a handy banana-shaped cloth case.
posted by agatha_magatha at 9:53 AM on December 6 [1 favorite]

Uno and Left Right Center (or LCR) would both be great for this.
posted by subwaytiles at 11:04 AM on December 6

Skyjo, or Quiddler. Skyjo (my personal favorite) is number-based, and Quiddler is word-based. Both are fun, travel well, and are super easy to learn.
posted by cellar door at 11:07 AM on December 6

Ransom Notes might tread towards silly, but has been a big hit with my extended family.
posted by advicepig at 11:12 AM on December 6

+1 for Uno & Ransom Notes - but also Shithead

You can call it “Shed” if the real name offends. Many variant rules exist. Lots of fun.
posted by Puppy McSock at 11:22 AM on December 6

mad libs
posted by brujita at 11:24 AM on December 6

Hanabi is a good one. Cooperative, easy to explain, fun to play.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 11:39 AM on December 6 [1 favorite]

It's a little close to your "no charades", but even our bunch of introverts likes to play Monikers. Everyone gets 10 cards and chooses 5 to go into the pool. Teams take turns, with one person giving clues and the rest of the team guessing. For the first round, you can say any number of words (except for the target word(s) on the card), sounds, or gestures. For the second round, you can only say one word; no sounds or gestures. For the third round, no words; gestures/pantomime only, and you can make sounds within reason. Since the same batch of cards is played each round, by the later rounds, "in-jokes" start to develop, and familiarity with the cards in play helps teams makes their guesses. We usually only play one, maybe two games (of three rounds each) becuase the cards start to run together and it's hard to rember "Was Rocky Balboa from this game, or the last one?"

Our group also enjoys Just One; the how-to is down a bit on the link and explains it well.

Werewords also gets a fair bit of play.
posted by xedrik at 11:44 AM on December 6

Q-Less is a dice game that one person plays at a time, but with a timer you could make it a group thing: https://q-lessgame.com/

Otherwise, it's Bananagrams alllllll daaaaaay.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:32 PM on December 6

I really like Fluxx in a big group. It's one of those games that you can tailor a bit to the group playing and it's so easy to start playing that you really do learn the rules as you go. It also comes in a million versions so you could get one that best suited the person you're gifting it to.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 12:45 PM on December 6 [1 favorite]

Ghost Blitz! It's a speedy pattern recognition game. Very simple to teach. You have to be the first to grab the correct game piece, based on what's shown on the drawn card. Competitive but not complicated, people can drop in and out, a full round only lasts about 15 minutes. Very portable, parts are 5 small wooden game pieces and a deck of cards.

Also seconding Codenames which is the most popular new party game I've found. It gives a similar kind of group-guessing fun as charades. It is more cerebral and less silly and performative than charades, but still often wildly funny. Ultra-portable; components are 2 decks of cards.

Magnetic travel backgammon is only 2-player of course, but good for the beach. That WE Games leatherette set is a good size for travel but still comfortable to play.
posted by hovey at 1:13 PM on December 6

Take 5. We had 10 people at our place for Thanksgiving, ages 14 - 75. People picked it up quickly, we had lots of laughs, and since the game can be fairly random it kept competitive personalities in check.
posted by Cu_wire at 1:50 PM on December 6

I recently played Sounds Fishy with a group of people I don't know well. It was fun. I am an introvert and can be shy, but I didn't feel overly pressured or embarrassed by the game.
posted by OrangeDisk at 3:09 PM on December 6

5 second rule link to a random listing for it, as it's also a common phrase.

Tenzi (review link)

And once you have that many dice, Farkle. (Wikipedia link)
posted by freethefeet at 3:33 PM on December 6

My family enjoyed the dice-rolling game Left Center Right. We played it with dollar bills, which was fun.

My friend group enjoyed the game Blank Slate, which is a bout filling in the second half of a phrase with an less common but not unique second half.

My in-laws enjoyed Telestrations, which is a telephone-like passing game with words and illustrations.
posted by vunder at 5:00 PM on December 6 [1 favorite]

Oh, Left Right Center absolutely tore through my wife's family for like two years of celebrations. Always yelling "Did you bring your quarters?" as we came in the door, and jamming in around the biggest table to play.

Very popular for all ages.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:48 PM on December 6

Wits and Wagers is good for a group that size. It is trivia-centric (like “how tall was the tallest giraffe?”), but is not a simple test of knowledge. All the answers are numeric so everyone answers, the answers get sorted, and then everyone bets on what they think is the closest (without going over) answer.

You won’t know the answer most of the time, but you bet with the knowledge of where the answers converge and knowing what the other people know (like if Jane is really into space, her answer to “how long does it take light to reach Earth from the sun?” might be a good one to bet on), so it’s much more inclusive and not just for trivia nerds.
posted by hankscorpio83 at 9:13 PM on December 6

+1 on bananagrams, and I also recently played hues and clues, the guessing game of colors and loved it!
posted by beignet at 11:52 PM on December 6

5 Crowns is very well-liked among my game group. Pretty much just like Quiddler but with numbers instead of letters.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 9:57 AM on December 7