How to play state trivia in the car
One passenger holds the phone and reads. Everyone else answers out loud, and the first right answer scores a point. The driver can play fully, since nothing needs a look at the screen: tap Read aloud and the phone reads the question while the answer stays hidden.
Set your route before you pull out of the driveway. A drive from Chicago to Denver crosses Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska before Colorado, so pick those four and the deck turns into a quiz about the road ahead. Questions from different states are mixed together, so no one gets 25 Colorado questions in a row.
Teams and scoring for a mixed car
Trivia goes flat when one adult knows every capital. Split the car into two teams with a kid and an adult on each, and let the kid answer first. The adult only gets a turn if the kid passes.
Score capitals and nicknames at one point, and everything else at two. Kids pick up the one-pointers fast, and after an hour on the road they start taking the two-pointers too.
The welcome sign round
This is the best part of state trivia on a road trip. When you pass a “Welcome to…” sign at a state line:
- The first person to call out the new state’s name picks who answers next.
- The reader switches the deck to that state only and asks five questions in a row.
- Anything printed on the welcome sign counts as a free clue. Many signs show the state nickname or motto, and the deck asks about both.
Then switch the route back to every state on the trip. A long day with three border crossings gives you three bonus rounds, spaced out on their own.
What’s in the deck
Every question has an answer that won’t change next year: capitals, nicknames, official state birds and flowers, famous landmarks, rivers and mountains. There are no population counts or “biggest city” rankings, because those shift between editions of any atlas.
Twelve states get a full deck of 25 with a page of their own: Texas, Minnesota, Florida, California, New Jersey, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Maine, Mississippi, Arizona and Utah. Open one of those pages before a trip that stays inside one state. Each page also covers what you’ll drive past and a route worth taking.
When the car wants a change
State trivia pairs well with the license plate game: spot a plate, then ask a question about that state. For a quiz about highways and road signs, switch to the road trip trivia deck. If your trip ends at a park, the national parks trivia deck has 30 questions from Denali to the Everglades.