Quality, Engaging, and Creative Activity Books to Bring on Family Trips
“Are we there yet?” my daughter asks from the backseat.
I look around at the empty, vast nothingness surrounding us unsure of how to answer her question. Of course we’re not there yet. We are nowhere.
“Nope, not yet.” I try to keep the irritation out of my voice. This isn’t the first time she’s asks.
I reach into the travel activity bag on the passenger side of the car feeling around for something interesting for her to do. My hand comes to rest on a tall paperback book that I’m pretty sure is a new activity book I picked out especially for this trip.
“Here sweetie. Why don’t you give this a try. It has tons of animals inside!” I tell her as I pass the book back.
She scrunches up her face at me, but I hear the pages start to flip and the backseat is quiet again.
Road trip mini-victory.
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9+ Best Activity Books for Family Trips
We have used a ton of activity books in the past half decade, but these are the ones that have held the attention of my twins. They are creative, engaging, unique and some of them are even reusable.
1. My First Wild Activity Book
I can’t think of a better activity book for kids who love animals. This one from Silver Dolphin takes you on an adventure through different habitats around the world with fun activities along the way. The first pages welcome your kiddo – an Explorer! – and has you create an “explorer profile” and portrait. The rest of the book is divided into seven different habitats. Each habitat has a fold out look and find page, space to finish a picture, and more.
My kids loved completing these activities and learned a little from the facts in each section along the way. I liked the inclusion of an art activity / craft in each section, but I will say since we used this as a travel activity book, these haven’t been done yet. The rest of it however was easy to do in the car and made for an excellent travel activity book for my kiddos. ages 4-8
2. Magic Velvet Activity Books
These books from Melissa and Doug are easy enough for preschoolers to do on their own but still fun for my seven year olds. You can buy ones in a huge variety of themes. ages 3-4+
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3. National Geographic Road Trip Activity Book
If you’re going on a USA road trip with first graders and up I highly recommend this book. It is full of fun activities and interesting information about places around the country. We used this one when we drove from New York City to San Diego. ages 7+
4. Usborne Activity Books
Usborne has a ton of activity books on a huge range of subjects and we have yet to buy one we don’t love. Our most recent was the SPACE ACTIVITY BOOK which was fascinating and fun. I highly recommend any in this series. ages 4+
5. the Anti-Coloring Book
These are fun sort of coloring books for kids about second grade and up. They give your kiddo inspiration with a start of a picture, but leave you to fill in the details or story. I loved these as a kid and they are still fun decades later. ages 6+
6. BIG FOOT Goes on Vacation
There are a couple in this series but this is our favorite. They are essentially WHERE’S WALDO books (also a great recommendation for travel activity book)
What I like about these book though for kids who can read to themselves are that in between the search for Big Foot pages they offer you fun, interesting facts about a topic.
This one has facts about carnivals, cruises, safaris, etc. ages 5+
7. Melissa and Doug Reusable Stickers
I’m not sure if these count as “activity books” but they have pages and they are definitely an activity. My kids LOVE these and they are reusable which is awesome. You do have to remove the stickers and put them back on their starting page which is a little annoying but worth it to me to be able to reuse them.
The other thing I love about these is that they grow with your kid. My twins loved just sticking the stickers when they were toddlers. When they got to around age 4 they started to make up stories about the pages and stickers. ages 2+
8. Mini-Mega Activity Book
These were a huge hit on our cross country moving road trip and they still had more pages left that we finished on the next two flights they took. They have a big variety of activities inside which helps to keep their attention. ages 5+
9. Don’t Let the Pigeon Finish This Activity Book
This one I don’t love for in the car, BUT I do love it for in the hotel. It has lots of activities that are fun and doable with just scissors, tape, and crayons. Throw this in the suitcase and you barely need anything else for your kids to do. It’s just good silly fun. I used one book for my twins. There are some pages where it would have been nice to have one for each of them, but it’s not necessary and for the most part it is way more fun if you do it all together. ages 3+
