Every family vacation has its slower moments.
Maybe it’s raining at the lake, the afternoon sun is simply too hot for another hike, or everyone is winding down after a day at the beach. Sometimes those quiet hours become the best memories of the entire trip.
We’ve found that packing just a few screen-free games can completely change those in-between moments. Whether you’re staying in a cozy cabin, a beach house, an Airbnb, an RV, or a hotel suite, these games are easy to pack, simple to learn, and fun for nearly every age.
Here are the seven games and puzzles we never regret bringing along.
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1. Completing the Puzzle Subscription ⭐ Featured Pick
Rather than buying puzzle after puzzle—and eventually running out of closet space—I recently tried Completing the Puzzle, a puzzle rental subscription that feels almost tailor-made for family vacations.
Instead of purchasing a new puzzle for every trip, you fill out a quick preference quiz and receive a high-quality puzzle matched to your interests. Once you’ve finished it, simply place it back into the reusable mailer with the prepaid shipping label, send it back, and another puzzle is on its way.
The service offers access to more than 1,300 puzzles from over 40 premium brands, has shipped more than 840,000 puzzles, and maintains an impressive 4.8-star average rating from verified customers.
What I especially love is how perfectly it fits the rhythm of vacation. Leave the puzzle spread across the dining room table at your cabin all week. Add a few pieces before breakfast, after a hike, or while dinner is cooking. It becomes a shared activity that everyone can join for five minutes—or an hour—without anyone feeling pressured to finish all at once. When you return home, simply mail it back instead of wondering where you’re going to store another completed puzzle.
2. A Simple Deck of Cards
Sometimes the most memorable vacation entertainment costs just a few dollars.
One of my favorite childhood memories is sitting at my grandparents’ lake house during the 1990s with my dad and little brother, carefully building elaborate card castles across the dining room table. We’d spend far longer constructing them than we probably should have—and inevitably someone would bump the table and we’d all burst into laughter as everything came crashing down.
Of course, a single deck of cards also unlocks hundreds of classic games, from Go Fish and Crazy Eights for younger kids to Hearts, Spades, Rummy, and Gin for older players. It takes up almost no room in your suitcase, never needs batteries, and somehow manages to entertain every generation around the table.
3. UNO
If there were a universal vacation card game, UNO would probably win.
The objective is simple: be the first player to get rid of all of your cards by matching colors or numbers while strategically using action cards like Reverse, Skip, Draw Two, and Wild cards to keep everyone else from winning.
The rules take just a few minutes to learn, making it perfect when grandparents, teenagers, parents, and younger siblings all want to play together. Games move quickly, there’s plenty of laughter (and friendly trash talk), and everyone gets excited when someone is down to one card and forgets to yell “UNO!” It’s the kind of game that somehow ends with, “Let’s play one more.”
4. Farkle
If your family enjoys a little risk-taking, Farkle is always a hit.
Players roll six dice, trying to score points through different combinations while deciding whether to bank their points or keep rolling for a higher score. Push your luck too far without earning additional points, however, and you “Farkle,” losing everything from that turn.
Because every roll feels exciting, people who normally don’t love board games quickly get invested. The game is small enough to toss into a backpack, easy to play around a picnic table or cabin porch, and exciting enough that adults often become just as competitive as the kids.
5. Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
This fast-paced card game usually produces more laughter than almost anything else we pack.
Players take turns placing cards while saying the words “Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza” in order. Whenever the spoken word matches the card that’s revealed, everyone races to slap the pile. The last player to react collects all the cards, and the goal is to get rid of every card in your hand first.
The game only takes a minute or two to explain, rounds are short, and the frantic pace keeps everyone engaged. Kids love the silly names, teenagers secretly love the competition, and adults quickly discover that they’re not nearly as fast as they thought they were.
6. Bananagrams
Bananagrams feels like Scrabble without the board—and without the waiting.
Each player races to build their own crossword puzzle using letter tiles, continually rearranging words as new letters are added. The first player to use all of their tiles correctly wins.
It’s a fantastic travel game because there’s almost no setup, games move quickly, and it fits into a small zippered pouch instead of a bulky box. Younger players practice spelling without realizing it, while older kids and adults enjoy the challenge of building increasingly creative word grids.
7. Travel Chess
Chess has remained one of the world’s most beloved strategy games for centuries for good reason.
The objective is to outthink your opponent by carefully moving your pieces across the board while protecting your own king and eventually placing your opponent’s king in checkmate. Every move matters, and every game unfolds differently.
A travel-sized magnetic chess set makes it easy to play in the car (when parked), at an airport, inside a cabin, or on the porch of a vacation rental without worrying about pieces getting lost. Younger players build critical thinking and patience, while experienced players appreciate having a game that never gets old. Even if only two people are playing, the rest of the family often ends up gathered around the board offering advice—or quietly watching the match unfold.
Some of our favorite family vacation memories have nothing to do with theme parks or famous attractions.
They’re the rainy afternoons spent around the dining room table, the lazy mornings on the porch with coffee and a puzzle, the evenings filled with laughter over UNO, or the friendly family rivalry that somehow carries over from one game of Farkle to the next.
Pack a few of these games before your next trip, and don’t be surprised if they become just as memorable as the destination itself.
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