In most cases, I believe that less is more, but especially when it comes to game size. If it’s possible to still play the same game without having a giant box on my shelf, I will gladly opt for it. And over time we have found some great board games offered in the travel size.
First, maybe you should know we have well over 200 if you didn’t know already. So even cutting down 5 big boxes is a huge win.
Related: Drowning in games? Here are the best board game storage ideas
Triominoes
This was a game we played a lot when I was growing up. I remember the big black plastic pieces and them constantly falling over revealing my numbers.
2 years ago I found Travel triominoes and love it. Not only are the tiles actually substantial tiles, but it comes with 4 tiny trays to put them on. And it’s still the same game with the same numbers.
Boggle
We have an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny travel boggle. Now obviously we wouldn’t use it to play with grandma or anyone that struggles with eye sight. But it’s again still the same pieces and letters but about a tenth of the size.
Connect 4/ Snakes and Ladders
We have this beautiful wooden travel Connect 4 with marble-like colored pieces. It’s intuitively made where the tray and the grid fit into one another and all the marbles stay inside. It’s a much higher quality than the plastic varieties and size definitely doesn’t matter.
Guess Who
Ever had issues with the face cards falling out? It MUCH less of a problem in the travel version. And of course there is no need for the big and bulky plastic contraptions when a small travel frame works as well. Personally, we also like the pictures better on the travel size.
Battleship
We have a nice, compact zippered version. It’s both smaller and a lot more intuitive for handling those tiny pegs. It’s the worst part about playing battleship and I have even seen some varieties that don’t have moveable pegs, rather something that can simply be pressed.
Magnetic versions of games for those who struggle losing pieces
In general, a lot of travel games come with storage in mind, but the idea that many are also magnetic means that if your family is plagued by the missing piece thief, then maybe consider getting a few magnetic varieties to cut down on the odds of something going AWOL.
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[…] Want even more board game ideas? Kara from Board Games for Learning has a great list of perfect travel size games. […]