A fun little game to make the waiting less of a painful exercise and more an enjoyable part of the travel experience

If there’s one thing frequent travelers hate the most, it’s the waiting. You wait to check in, for your flight, for your luggage… Let’s not even talk about delayed flights and cancellations!

A fun little game to make the waiting less of a painful exercise and more an enjoyable part of the travel experience

A fun little game to make the waiting less of a painful exercise and more an enjoyable part of the travel experience

All that waiting translates to a lot of hours better spent enjoying the sights and sounds of wherever it is you’re traveling to. That’s likely never going to happen in this lifetime, though, so the best way to deal with it is to find a fun little diversion. That’s where travel bingo comes in.

Bingo, as old as it is, is experiencing a bit of a popularity surge lately, thanks largely to the amount of money online bingo sites are spending to get new customers. Take UK-based Caschade’s Foxy Bingo, for instance. They have TV adverts, sponsorship deals, thousand-pound promos, and their own fox mascot shilling for all he’s worth. He’s even been pretty active with the promos via the official FoxyBingo on Twitter  account.

The bingo boom has been indirectly responsible for the rise of a number of crazy little variants, including travel bingo. The game follows the same basic principles as regular bingo: you get a card, mark down squares, and try to form lines.

The main difference is that instead of numbers, the squares have sights and sounds you typically see when you travel. These can include, for example, the “’I can’t miss my flight!’ person” or “Way too into local sports guy.” When you see any of the things listed on your card, you mark them down.

The Galley Chronicles has both a sample card and a printable PDF that you can use to get started. The blog also has a few ideas for an in-flight version. The more seasoned travelers may also want to make their own arrivals version.

Playing travel bingo is just one of the many fun little things you can try to make the waiting less of a painful exercise and more an enjoyable part of the travel experience. Just have fun with it, and try not to shout “Bingo!” too loudly when you win.