Don’t Make Me Turn This Car Around… Unless It’s for Free Road Trip Bingo
There’s nothing like a long road trip to remind you how weird and wonderful travel can be. One minute you’re cruising past wide-open fields, the next you’re stuck behind a slowpoke with a bumper sticker that says “Honk if you love cheese.”
To turn all the unexpected twists and turns into comedy gold, we made Road Trip Bingo. Download these free, printable road trip bingo cards and mark off each ridiculous moment as it passes on the highway.
How do you play road trip bingo?
The days of Slug Bug as a road trip game are over, partly due to the reduced number of Punch Buggys on the road, and partly because Clobber Camry doesn’t have the same ring to it.
In our prime modern times, where a printer is never more than a Maps search away, the game of the road is Road Trip Bingo.
Road trip bingo works just like the regular bingo you’d play at Cafe Casino, but you cross off squares that call out the quirks of life on the open road. You won’t find numbers except maybe when someone overtakes two RVs. Grab your road trip bingo printable cards, pass them around the car, and turn those long miles into a competition. We’re not saying it beats your cousin’s fifth retelling of his high school football days, but it comes in a close second. Just like your cousin did.
Every square on your card is tied to a real-life road trip moment. Spot a cyclist pedaling way too close to traffic? Mark that square. Pass an abandoned barn that looks like it should’ve collapsed three presidents ago? That’s another one down. Someone in the next car loses their mind in a fit of road rage? Congrats, check it off (and keep that middle finger parked in neutral where it belongs).
As with any bingo, the first person to line up five squares in a row, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, wins. Prizes are optional, but bragging rights are mandatory. You must allow the winner to boast for the remainder of the trip, but only about their bingo win…and maybe about their Cafe Casino jackpot win, which warrants a lifetime of boasting.
Or how about this? Whoever wins gets to pass around their Cafe Casino referral link, and everyone in the car signs up, awarding the lucky link-giver unlimited cash referral bonuses.
Our Funny Road Trip Bingo Card
Of course, no card is complete without the road trip staples. Your road trip bingo funny moment might come from a driver clumsily using their electric shaver, a deer darting across the shoulder, or a fellow traveler still trying to use a paper map like it’s 1997. If your luck’s good (or your road trip’s just that messy), you might even hit the holy grail: trapped between a slow coach and a tailgater.
But the real gems are the ones that spark laughter in the car. Maybe you catch a mattress tied to the roof with what looks like dental floss. PRO TIP: If you see a logging truck held together the same way, change lanes fast. We’ve seen Final Destination.
Then again, maybe you spot that RV with a punny decal: “RV There Yet?”. That deserves both an eye roll and a square. And let’s not forget the eternal feud: being sandwiched between a slowpoke in the left lane and a tailgater who thinks you’re running the Indy 500.
The beauty of the card is that it celebrates all flavors of road trip shenanigans. Every square is a reminder that the journey’s just as entertaining as the destination.
How do I make my own road trip bingo cards?
Sure, we’ve given you a ready-to-print set (also for Office Bingo, in case you need something to do on Monday, too), but half the fun is coming up with your own road trip bingo cards tailored to the weirdness of your travel crew. Making them is easy and only requires a little creativity. Nothing your backseat doodler couldn’t handle.
Start with a blank 5×5 grid. In the middle, drop in a free space. Not only is it bingo tradition, but also, no road trip ever goes down without someone complaining about the car temperature, so let’s just call that an automatic square.
Next, decide how you’ll mark the squares. Pens work fine, especially if the ride’s bumpy. Your pen daubing on the squares might even turn into abstract art. Also consider stickers or sticky notes. Basically, anything that won’t roll under the seas at the first pothole. Some people even laminate their cards and bring dry-erase markers so they can reuse them game after game.
Printing is simple. You can run them off at home or swing by a printing store if you’re already on the road. For tech-savvy travelers, digital bingo apps allow you to design a custom card and play directly on your phone or tablet. Just be sure to close out your previous windows, so no one accidentally catches the screen where you Googled, “Is Buc-ee’s a cult?”
Finally, you could hand out identical sets, or you could shuffle different versions so no two people are chasing the exact same squares. That way, you have even more to crack up over.
What are the best road trip bingo ideas?
Once you’ve got the basics down, the fun comes in brainstorming the best prompts for your printable car bingo, which are essentially your funny bingo calls of the road. The strongest bingo ideas are a mix of road trip “classics” and your group’s personal quirks.
The classics include spotting a red convertible, seeing a rest stop billboard, or catching an out-of-state plate. For inside jokes, think along the lines of, “Uncle Bill tells the same story again,” or “someone yells at Jessica to stop ruining Kelly Clarkson.”
If you want to get fancy, you can even theme your cards: “Weird Gift Bingo” for gas station finds like a taxidermy armadillo keychain or a t-shirt that says “I <3 Gas.” You could do “Billboard Bingo” for punny lawyer ads and giant fast-food signs, or “Family Drama Bingo” if you’re brave enough – ‘nuff said.
You can even design special categories, such as Car Karaoke Bingo (where every square represents a different song trope) or Scenic Route Bingo (featuring wildflowers, roadside diners, and historic markers). The more specific and funny you make your squares, the more your group will get into it.
At the end of the day, the best road trip bingo ideas are the ones that make your passengers yell, “I saw it first!” and laugh at “Barry B. Sue’em: Injured? Call Barry!”
When you need a break between rounds of road trip bingo, have everyone pull out their phones and fire up Hot Drop Jackpots at Cafe Casino. With jackpots dropping every hour, you could score enough cash to cover matching t-shirts and a lifetime supply of Buc-ee’s corndogs. And no, Buc-ee’s isn’t a cult, but it is a way of life.
Road trips come and go, but the laughs from bingo last way past the exit sign. With our printable road trip games for adults, your perfect travel companion is already in the bag…or underneath the old gum wrappers in the center console. When the drive is over, keep the streak alive with real-money bingo. Signed, Cashmore & Cashmore Attorneys, taking exit 24-7 toward Cafe Casino.