Certainly the best game to play on a road trip or a boring drive, the License Plate Game is seriously fun to get into. Here’s how it goes (there aren’t any rules other than ‘don’t crash the car’):

Best case scenario, you’ll be in a passenger seat or on a bus. Watch the cars go by so you can see their plates. It might be hard to discern the text when you start or if you’re going a little fast, but it’ll get easier. The objective of the game is to see how many out-of-state plates you can spot before you get to your destination. My dad and I add some “stakes” when we play: we bet fictional money on a number. The number is how many plates we predict we’ll see. Side note: last time, my dad won and I’m still looking for revenge!

I started tallying up what states I see in my notebook, and New Jersey is pretty common next to Florida, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, with New Jersey being the plates most often seen. After being on the road for three hours on the way to Delaware, I saw so many more out-of-state plates. The farther I got from New York, the more custom and differently colored plates I saw. New Jersey has so far been the most diverse in terms of backdrops and colors.

I don’t know where or when this game started, but I should’ve known about it sooner. If you’re the traveling type, you obviously won’t see any plates if you’re in the air. However, road trips will do you well on this scavenger hunt for the 50 states. In my case, I’ve been to Florida countless times over the years because that’s where my grandfather used to live. When I see a Florida license plate, I put two tallies down instead of one.

This is just because I miss him, to be honest. I got my Grandma into this game too; she sent me a text telling me that now I’ve got her looking at plates. This is really a game to share with family or with just you and the car.