For many of us summer means time for the beach, barbecues and, of course, the family car trip. The family car trip seems to me to be the things of lore; often adults get a wistful look in their eye recalling the time they “piled into the family station wagon” and set off across the country, stopping to take in such sights as “The World’s Biggest Dental Floss Collection” and “Ma’s Griddled and Greased Everything Diner.”

What we couldn’t have understood then was the enormous toll car trips took on our parents. Only now can I grasp that concept, having spent twelve hours in a car with children who are prone to bicker, whine and fuss. The introduction of DVDs into cars certainly has helped some families ease their way across the interstate. Sadly, our car was not made for such things, so we have worked to find other ways to make the time go by. In addition to an extensive audio book collection, we have two favorite items that I think are a must have for any car trip.

Rubberneckers is the classic look and find game. A deck of cards contains both pictures and words of items one might find along the roadside. Some of them are easy (stop sign); some of them are trickier (try spotting the moon at one in the afternoon). There’s no bingo card or score sheet to fill out – you simply take turns pulling cards from the deck and everyone works to be the first person to spot the item. My kids love this game and we’ve been known to play for hours.

Crayola Window Markers require a sort of Zen from parents, and probably the control of a slightly older child. If you’re the kind of parent who insists on maintaining a spotless car then this would not be the time-passer for you. (I’m not sure these markers were meant for the car, but that’s where ours ended up on a road trip last year.) The kids loved them and spent hours creating murals on their windows. When they grew tired of what they’d drawn, they simply wiped them away and started over. We were lucky that we didn’t have kids who wrote on the upholstery (hence older kids), but they did end up with a lot of marker on their hands (control freaks take heed). Fortunately the marker washes easily from both the windows and the kids.

My favorite thing about both of these items is that they provide potentially hours of fun for very little investment.

So, good luck out there and just know that someday our kids will wistfully look back on these trips and tell their kids about the good times they had.

We hope.