Road trip bingo

Red car, caravan or motorhome, tractor, lorry with a foreign number plate, double-decker bus, motorbike, a car towing a trailer, a recovery truck. These appear often enough to keep the card moving.

Sheep, cows, horses, a dog with its head out of a window, birds of prey hovering over a verge, pheasants. Easy wins on rural roads and a reliable favourite with younger children.

Services sign, a brown tourist-attraction sign, roadworks, a speed camera, a bridge, a level crossing, a roundabout with more than four exits. Good middle-difficulty squares for most routes.

A church spire, a castle or ruin, a windmill or wind turbine, a lighthouse, a pub with a name on the sign, a farm shop. These are the squares that win or lose a tight game.

A river or canal, a field of a single bright crop, a forest, a hill with sheep on it, the sea coming into view. Lovely for scenic drives and a gentle prompt to actually look at the view.

Spot the giveaway number plate or a haulage name from across the Channel. A staple of motorway bingo and surprisingly common on the main north–south routes.

All but guaranteed in summer, rarer in winter — which makes it a fair square that depends on the season and the road.

The big electronic signs warning of queues or speed limits. Easy on smart motorways and a good square to keep younger players ticking along.

Spot the logo on the approach sign before you pass the slip road. Doubles nicely as a cue to decide where you're actually stopping next.

Footbridges and road bridges crossing above you appear regularly, so it is an easy square that stops the card stalling in heavy traffic.

A sign you are not the only ones on a trip. Common on holiday weekends and a satisfying spot on a long drive.

Near-certain on upland roads, and a genuine event when they're blocking the way. A classic opener that gets younger children watching the verges.

Brown tourist signs often give you warning. A strong square on routes like the Northumberland 250 or the North Coast 500, where they come thick and fast.

The little diamond-shaped passing-place signs are a fixture of remote drives and a fair square once you're off the main roads.

A real moment on a coastal route, and worth saving as the square that wins the whole card on a drive that ends at the coast.

Old packhorse bridges and the occasional water splash are common on country lanes and a charming thing to have everyone looking out for.

Kestrels and buzzards work the roadside grass along most rural routes. A satisfying spot that rewards the player actually watching the scenery.

For under-sevens who can't yet read fast, use cards with pictures rather than words and forget about completing lines — first to spot any five things wins. Keep the squares to near-certain spots like a red car, a dog and a tractor so everyone feels like a winner.

Bump up the difficulty with rarer spots — a lighthouse, a foreign lorry, a wind turbine — and play for the full card rather than a single line, so a round lasts a proper stretch of the journey.

Score each square by how hard it is to spot and total up at the next stop, or play that the loser buys the coffees. The rarer the square, the more it's worth, which keeps competitive front-seat passengers genuinely invested.

Instead of racing each other, give the whole car one shared card and a target — fill it before you reach your lunch stop. It turns squabbling siblings into a team and works brilliantly with a wide age range.

Agree before you start that the driver doesn't play (eyes on the road), each spot has to be called out and seen by at least one other person, and anything you've already passed doesn't count. It heads off the inevitable "I saw it first" disputes.