Flip to Win Bingo

This wood-crafted game, Flip to Win Bingo, in classic Melissa & Doug style, lets your grandchildren pick a road theme (town, country, vehicles, and signs), and find the specific objects pictured on each board. The first player to fill a certain number of spaces wins. Instead of traditional loose discs, these bingo pieces are attached to flip open and closed — so no one really loses.

Age: 4+
Retail Price: $20
Available at: multiple sellers

Star Kids Snack & Play

For the open road or the friendly skies, kids in seats need an adequate surface for all the games, books, and snacks they consume on long hauls. The foam-filled Snack & Play is like a mini-desk on which, as the name suggests, your grandchild can eat, draw, and play games. The soft, one-piece design is easy to set up, and features a rimmed surface that keeps tiny items like crayons or edible Goldfish from rolling away. The see-through mesh side-bags hold a kid’s travel essentials within reaching distance.

Age: 1+
Retail Price: $20
Available at: multiple sellers

MySims Racing

If you’re taking your grandkids on a road trip this summer, you might hear “Are we there yet?” less often if they’re engaged in an exciting car ride of their own, albeit a virtual one. With MySims Racing, a new game for their Nintendo DS, grandkids can trick out the cars, complete various challenges, and race against one another using either a local wireless connection or Nintendo WiFi (for as many as four players). The game received glowing reviews not only from our own 6- and 8-year-old toy testers, but also from the adult gaming media. Take it for a spin — when you’re not behind the real wheel.

Age: 5+
Retail Price: $30
Available at: amazon.com

Name Bubbles

Grandchildren headed to camp or a cousin’s crowded house with their favorite stuff in tow might return home without their treasured book or plastic car. And so there are Name Bubbles, durable, vinyl, personalized name labels in cute colors and designs for boys and girls. Our favorite is the Camp Pack, which includes 124 labels in a variety of sizes: giant labels for board games or big binders, and smaller ones for video-game cartridges and iPods. Labels used on clothing and mealtime gear can withstand laundering and the dishwasher, and depending on what you select, they may also include contact info like a phone number or e-mail address.

Age: 0+
Retail Price: $33.20
Available at: namebubbles.com

Bananagrams

Like a prequel to Scrabble, Bananagrams challenges kids to build words off one another without the complication of a board or separate scorekeeping. It’s not the easiest game to play in a car, because you need a sizable flat surface, but the 144 tiles fit into a zip-up, banana-shape sack, so it’s easy to stuff into a backpack and play on a picnic table once you get where you’re going.

Age: 7+
Retail Price: $15
Available at: multiple sellers