There’s something oddly delightful about being stuck in a tin tube at 35,000 feet….or maybe that’s just me? After years of travelling for fun and for work, I’ve collected a great set of airplane games for adults that you can play from your seats. Simple ideas to turn long, tedious travel days into competitive and fun moments with your partner or friends.
And now I’m sharing some of my favourite games with you!
All the games I share here (and so many more!) are from my book Airplane Games for Adults. The book includes game ideas you can do from your seat, plus dozens of fun challenges, prompts and conversation starters. From reverse colouring into word searches. Brain-busting challenges to questions to get to know your travel buddies better.
If you have a flight coming up, definitely check out the book!
All of these games are quick to start, require absolutely nothing but the people you’re sitting with, and work brilliantly even in cramped airplane seats.
Here are my favourite airplane-friendly games for adults…
1. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Minus One
This lively twist on Rock–Paper–Scissors is perfect when you want something quick. However, it’s surprisingly hard work to do the quick maths of the game in your head!
Two players face each other. Choose one to count you in, “One, two, three!” Instead of using one hand, each player shows two different signs at the same time on three. Immediately after, the referee calls, “Drop one!”, forcing both players to snatch one hand back as fast as they can. (‘Drop one’ should be said at the same speed as you counted the numbers).
The remaining hands then face off in a standard round of Rock–Paper–Scissors. Keep track of points and play best of 3 or 5.
2. Chain Reaction
This memory-building game starts with something simple: the first player says a short phrase such as “Going to work.” The next person must repeat it exactly and then add a new phrase that begins with the final word of the previous one. The chain stretches quickly, becoming longer and more absurd with each turn — perhaps “Going to work out” becomes “Going to work out and about” and later “Going to work out and about time.”
If anyone forgets the full sequence or stumbles over the wording, they’re out of the round. The last person who can repeat every phrase correctly wins, making it a fun combination of creativity and sharp memory.
3. The Unlucky Number
Choose a number that no one is allowed to say – traditionally, thirty-one is the unlucky number, but you can switch this up in future rounds. Players take turns counting upwards, choosing whether to say one, two, or three numbers on their turn. For example:
Player 1: One, Two
Player 2: Three, Four, Five
Player 1: Six
Player 2: Seven, Eight, Nine
And so on….
The strategy lies in deciding how many to say while trying to avoid being the person forced to utter the dreaded number. The suspense builds as you climb closer to the target, and the player who ends up saying it loses the round. If playing with more than 2 players, that person simply steps out, and the game continues until only one remains.
4. Can You Name Them All?
If you enjoy a challenge that feels deceptively easy at first, this is a brilliant way to pass the time on a flight. You and your travel companions try to name all the fifty US states. Try to list as many as possible purely from memory.
Once you’ve taken on that challenge, see if you can then name the forty-four countries of Europe!
It’s incredibly satisfying when you’re on a roll, and incredibly frustrating when just one name refuses to come to mind. Make sure you jot down the full list somewhere before take-off, otherwise you’ll have a really infuriating flight!
5. The Film Clue
This is an excellent game if you love movies but, like me, can never remember the names of actors or titles! One person chooses a film, actor, or director but keeps the answer to themselves. Instead of giving obvious hints, they describe it by referring indirectly to other films, creators, or performers without naming anything outright. The clues might sound like, “This film was made by someone who starred in a well-known French classic, and the director of that French film went on to make the fourth instalment of a famous sci-fi franchise.”
If no one gets it, the thinker continues adding clues, gradually becoming more helpful until someone cracks the mystery. It’s surprisingly absorbing and usually ends with people groaning when they realise the answer was obvious all along.
A reminder that all these games, along with dozens more, are available in my book Airplane Games for Adults.
6. A to Zyzzyva
In this dictionary-style guessing game, one player silently chooses a word. They start by announcing the full range of the dictionary -essentially from the first word, ‘a’, to the last, ‘zyzzyva’.
Guessers then offer random words, and after each guess, the chooser narrows the range to show where the hidden word sits alphabetically. If the secret word is “house” and someone guesses “forest”, for example, the range becomes “forest to zyzzyva” (because ‘house’ comes after ‘forest’ but not before ‘zyzzyva’.
If the next guessed word is ‘snake’, then the range now becomes, “forest to snake” (ie, ‘house’ sits between these two words).
With each guess, the options shrink until someone eventually hits the correct word. When a guesser succeeds, they become the new chooser, and the game begins again.
7. Suuken
This Japanese counting game works surprisingly well even in the narrow confines of an airplane seat. You can play with two or more players.
Every player puts out two fists, representing two “lives”. Player one goes first. They call out a number between 0 and the total number of potential raised thumbs (so if two people are playing, the maximum is 4; if there are 3 people, it’s 6). Everyone, including the player who is guessing, then simultaneously chooses to raise zero, one, or two thumbs.
If the total number of raised thumbs matches the number you called, you get to remove one of your hands from play, meaning that hand can no longer raise a thumb in later rounds (and guesses should be changed accordingly).
The turn then moves to the next player. The aim is to be the first person to successfully eliminate both your hands.
If you’ve got a big travel day coming up, don’t forget to check out my book Airplane Games for Adults. It also makes a great gift!
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