Travel Board Games

Best Travel Games

Board games are a great way to relax and spend time with your family and friends, even when you are traveling. Having an alternate source of entertainment at your fingertips is great when you are stuck inside your tent or hotel due to unforeseen circumstances. With these travel board games, there is no reason to worry if your travel plans need to be adjusted or if you are looking for something low-key to do in your downtime. This guide is for eleven of the best travel games to take on the road with you, whether you are playing with friends or even by yourself.

*I want to give special thanks to my husband Daniel for using his love of board games to help put together this guide*

If you need help with trip planning, our post about Planning the Perfect Trip is sure to help!

Board Games for Travel

Board games have evolved a lot since the days of the original Uno and monopoly. Now you can choose to play games where you compete against each other or work together towards a common goal. These eleven travel games cover all types of gameplay and come in more compact packaging so they will be easier to bring along in your travel bag. You also have the option of purchasing card sleeves or a small waterproof case that can save even more space in your travel bags and keep your games safe from any rain damage if you are hiking.

Here is a quick reference list of the 11 board games for travel. The next sections will dive a bit further into what to expect from each game.

Travel Board Game List

• Friday– 1 player
• Tiny Epic Zombies– 1-5 players (competitive and cooperative)
• Flip City– 1-5 players (competitive)
• Okey Dokey– 1-5 players (cooperative)
• Pandemic: The Cure– 1-5 players (cooperative)
• KeyForge– 2 players (competitive)
• Unmatched: Bigfoot Vs Robin Hood– 2 players (competitive)
• Dark Tales– 2-4 players (competitive)
• Kittens in A Blender– 2-4 players (competitive)
• The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine– 2-5 players (cooperative)
• Timeline: Classic– 2-6 players (competitive)

Friday

The game almost lends itself to the card game “21” where the player is certainly ahead if they keep in mind the cards they have played or have a chance of coming up. This game definitely ditches out the pain for those looking for a challenging solo adventure.

Daniel

Number of Players: 1

Recommended play time: 25 minutes or less 

Difficulty Level: Hard

Game Play: The premise of Friday is that you are trying to survive alone on an unforgiving island of bad luck. During the game, you must use the deck-building element while juggling health points to stay alive. You start with a deck of very weak low-numbered cards, some even being negative. Throughout the game, you will try to acquire better stronger cards by defeating hazards and accomplishing different tasks in order to win.

Tip to Play: Keeping track of what cards have been played will help a lot throughout the game.

*The box that the game comes in has a small cardboard insert that can be removed so you can carry two different games in the same box to save space*

Tiny Epic Zombies (TEZ)

Tiny Epic Zombies is a 1 -5 player game that has a team of humans struggling to escape a shopping mall while also striving to avoid the cold grasps of the undead. TEZ has 5 game modes including both competitive and cooperative to help satisfy your need to crush your loved ones in a friendly battle between humans vs zombies or to work as a team of humans and to get out alive together!

Daniel

Number of Players: 1-5 (competitive and cooperative)

Recommended play time: 30-45 min

Difficulty Level: Medium

Game Play: For this game, you are part of a team of humans trying to escape a shopping mall while avoiding the undead. Each game of TEZ involves the players needing to complete 3 objectives successfully before they run out of time and/or get turned into a zombie. Meanwhile, you will collect a variety of weapons and use your character’s unique special abilities to accomplish your tasks. The gameboard and objectives change every game so it will always be a new experience.

Tips to Play: This game has multiple miniatures, cards, and tokens, so be mindful of where you try to play so you don’t lose any pieces.

*Gamelyn Games (the publisher of Tiny Epic Zombies) has a line of games that are “Tiny “and “Epic” if you are interested in purchasing more from them.*

Flip City

Although Flip City is competitive, it carries along with a relaxing wave of strategy at the beginning of play that builds into a tsunami of anticipation and sabotage as the turns are played.

Daniel

Number of Players: 1-4 (competitive)

Recommended play time: 30-50 min

Difficulty Level: Easy- Medium

Game Play: Flip City is a micro deck-building game in which all players start with the same cards and through a balance of strategy and chance they can upgrade them or ‘purchase’ new cards. The goal is to build the best city as quickly as possible, so you can accomplish a specific objective before someone else beats you to it. The game is completely made up of cards that are double-sided. The cards can be upgraded and downgraded which involves flipping the cards back and forth during play.

*There are several expansions that can be purchased for this game.*

Okey Dokey

Do you love the solitaire format but would love to involve more people than just your lonesome? Why not give Okey Dokey a try? Go in solo or with a team of up to 5 players in a cooperative attempt in which you are all delegated the task of arranging animals to put on a music festival without leaving any of the animals out.

Daniel

Number of Players: 1-5 (cooperative)

Recommended play time: 15-30 min

Difficulty Level: Easy

Game Play: This game is like solitaire in that your job is to arrange the animal cards in a certain order to put on a music festival without leaving any of the animals out. To win, all fifty of the numbered cards need to be placed within 10 columns in a particular order. The catch is that the players aren’t able to know what is in each other’s hands.

Pandemic: The Cure (PTC)

Pandemic The Cure takes the same theme and spirit of its board game counterpart but brings it in a small compact dice game while still maintaining the important core features. This game brings theme, strategy, teamwork, and slaps you in the face with tension and the very lives of everyone on the planet!

Daniel

Number of Players: 1-5 (cooperative)

Recommended play time: 45 min

Difficulty Level: Medium

Game Play: The Cure is primarily a dice game created by the Pandemic franchise. The game is based on the same goal as in the original game; for the players to work together to eradicate the 4 virus strains (represented by 4 different colors of die) on a board while controlling the outbreaks to save the world. Even though the outcome does rely heavily on the roll of the dice and special event cards that come up, strategy is still heavily involved. Each player will select a different role that has special abilities and a set of dice that will support the cause. Each role will determine what actions they can use. There is a solo variant available so you can play by yourself.

Tips to Play: We recommend sleeving the cards to keep them from getting bent or damaged during transportation if you use the bag it comes with to carry the game.

*There are expansions available*

KeyForge

Unlike most of the games on this list, this game although not hard to understand it does bring the possibility of multiple points of strategy that may dismay the not so casual gamer. There is no pre-building of decks or spending of life savings on packs hoping to get the best cards. The creators of Keyforge have created an algorithm that creates each prepackaged deck to be competitive as well as completely unique from every other deck. All in all, it brings a competitive strategy-driven game while not being as overbearing as a traditional CCG (collectible card game).

Daniel

Number of Players: 2 (competitive)

Recommended play time: 45 min

Difficulty Level: Medium

Game Play: The players’ goals in KeyForge are to collect Æmber (Pronounced Amber) and create Keys. This occurs by deploying creatures and artifacts to the battlefield, playing actions to get the upper hand on their opponent, and collecting Æmber to forge the Keys. To win, a player must forge three keys.

*Additional Decks Available*

Unmatched: Bigfoot Vs Robin Hood (BFVSRH)

If you have ever dreamt of the outcome of an all-out battle between the legendary Bigfoot and his sidekick, the mythical jackalope, versus the three ferocious velociraptors from the original Jurassic Park trilogy these series of games can make that happen.

Daniel

Number of Players: 2 (competitive)

Recommended play time: 2

Difficulty Level: Easy- Medium

Game Play:  Bigfoot Vs Robin Hood is a game that uses asymmetrical decks, detailed miniatures, and a board for tracking the movement of the different characters who can use their specific cards to outsmart and out bluff their opponent. Each character in the game starts with different amounts of health. The goal is to be the last man standing.

*This game is part of the Unmatched series of games in which each set can be used with one another. For even greater larger battles, with the proper board and expansions, 4 players can enjoy this game as a team vs team battle (2vs2)!*

Dark Tales

Feeling a bit more cutthroat and wanting to test your hand management skills against another in a fantasy world based loosely on Grimm’s fairy tales? Well then you have quite the weirdly random niche of game preferences you like to play but nevertheless, this is the game for you

Daniel

Number of Players: 2-4 (competitive)

Recommended play time: 30 min

Difficulty Level: Easy- Medium

Game Play: Two guideline cards are chosen at random at the beginning of each game, ensuring that every game will be slightly different. Players take turns playing cards with the ultimate goal of scoring the most points in order to win. Every card has different actions that you can take and points earned. They can also be used to put your opponent at a disadvantage if played correctly.

*There are numerous expansions available*

Kittens in a Blender (KIB)

Here is a game that’s great for people who don’t usually play games often and maybe their experience only goes as far as Monopoly but wouldn’t mind diving in a bit further off the deep end. Kittens In A Blender is a fastish paced card game that puts 2-4 players and their cats against each other with simple-to-read cards and adorable kitten portraits.

Daniel

Number of Players: 2-4 (competitive)

Recommended play time: 30 min

Difficulty Level: Easy

Game Play: Kittens in a Blender is a quick-paced card game that has rules similar to ‘rock, paper, scissors.’ Each player chooses a color for their kitten cards and there are 3 piles that you move your cards around once they are in play: blender, table, and box. The goal is to prevent your kittens from going into the blender and instead move them safely into the box. Throughout the game other actions cards can be played that can do things like blend what is in the blender, stop the blender, or move other player’s cards around. The game ends when all 16 “Blend” cards have been played. The person with the most points wins (Blended kittens = 1 pts,  Safe kittens= 2pts).

*If you like the game, there is an expansion available and a portion of the proceeds from this game are donated to no-kill cat shelters. You can meow rest easy knowing this. *

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (TC9)

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is an unusual game in the fact that it is a trick-taking game but unlike most where competition flourishes, in TC9 players, actually do so cooperatively

Daniel

Number of Players: 2-5 (cooperative)

Recommended play time: 5-20 min

Difficulty Level: Easy- Medium

Game Play: In TC9 players are astronauts on a mysterious space adventure that spans over 50 missions. Each mission can take anywhere from a few minutes to about 20 minutes (depending on player count and success of the mission. The game starts easily with certain guidelines that the players must follow in order to successfully complete the mission. Although the game does revolve around trick-taking it centers on the communication between players. Players communicate by using a token and placing it on different spots on a chosen card that will give clues about what cards that person has.  This can only be done by each person once per mission. Each mission increases in difficulty. It does contain a 2-player variant within the rules.

Tips to Play:  The key to winning is not the number of tricks played but playing the correct tricks at the right time.

If you have finished the 50 missions in the logbook, check online for some extra bonus missions!

Timeline: Classic (TC)

Timeline: Classic is a card game where a player’s random bits of useful and useless knowledge can definitely lead to a win. TC is for 2 to 6 players which is a nice plus on party range compared to most games of this size. Plenty of expansions are out to increase the difficulty as well as broaden the spectrum of types of cards.

Daniel

Number of Players: 2-6 (competitive)

Recommended play time: 15 min

Difficulty Level: Easy

Game Play: This card game is like jeopardy where players need to recall random facts and dates based on a particular theme in order to win. There are multiple versions of this game to choose from, each in a different area of interest. To win the game, you need to be able to properly guess when something has taken place in time. To start the game, a random card (event, invention, great discovery, etc.) is placed down with its date and description side up. Each player takes turns either putting one of their cards before or after the original card depending on whether they think that their card’s event happened before or after the card that had been played. If the player guesses correctly the card stays on the timeline. If the guess was incorrect the player places the card on the correct spot on the timeline and must also draw a new card to their hand. The first player to rid their hand of cards wins the game.

Tips: If you own the tin can version you can fit multiple versions/expansions of Timeline in the same box if you remove the plastic card tray in the box.

*There are several expansions available. *

Conclusion

This is a great list of 11 of the best travel games to get you started exploring different gaming options on the road. No matter if you like to keep the peace and play cooperatively, or are into fierce competition, there are several great options to choose from. These games are also great, because many of them have a solo player option for when your travel companions have fallen asleep early, and you are looking for something to do. Even better, if you find a game that you love, most have expansions available, so you have even more options for future gameplay. Start enjoying the downtime parts of your vacation even more!