Games to Play in a Hotel

Rain or winter weather have you trapped inside your hotel room? Need a great nighttime activity to wind down with while on vacation? Just tired of packed tourist attractions? Games are the solution. Playing games in your hotel provides entertainment, relaxation and quality family time. Whether sending the kids out on a scavenger hunt or settling around a game of Yahtzee, these games will make your hotel a lively place.

Just as entertaining for teens and adults as it is for children, scavenger hunt is a great hotel game. Create a list of a few dozen things or tasks the participants must accomplish, and set them loose. The best way is to have teams of two or more -- boys versus girls works well. List some standard things like ten hotel pens or a dozen shampoo bottles as well as some outrageous items like an employee's name tag. A great addition to a scavenger hunt is giving each team a digital camera. Have the participants take a picture with the hotel's general manager or a certain area of the hotel. Give a time limit and whoever collects the most items receives a prize (like picking the movie for the night).

Just as entertaining for the businessman as for the kids, waste basket basketball is perfect for expending energy or reliving stress, and everything is provided for you. A few crumpled sheets of paper and the hotel room's waste basket are substitutes for a ball and hoop. Just be sure to place the hoop in a part of the room free from breakables.

The most important part of hotel hide-and-seek is defining which areas are open and which are off-limits. You should pick a few floors or the pool area to play hide-and-seek. Hotels are labyrinths with plenty of places to hide. Kids can spend hours playing, giving parents some quiet time.

Want to expend a ton of kid energy in a short amount of time? Try hallway foot races. Hotel hallways are long, straight and usually free of any debris making them suitable for racing. This should only be done during the afternoon to avoid bothering other guest. You can even have relay races or have kids race with books on their heads.

Even with a vivid imagination and plenty of free time, its difficult to come up with different games to play at your hotel. When this happens you should have a few old standbys to fall back on. Board games, cards and trivia games are classics that will keep everyone entertained. Some good hotel board games are Yahtzee and Pictionary. These games are compact, and easy to travel with. Also travel versions of games like chess, checkers and Connect Four are suited for hotels as well as airplanes, cars and trains. A deck of cards is just as valuable when traveling. They are light, compact, entertaining and almost everyone knows how to play a couple of card games. Trivia games, whether purchased like Trivial Pursuit or one you create yourself, are enjoyable and a provide a learning experience.