For long road trips with kids, travel games are not only essential to maintain a driver’s sanity, they can be a memorable part of the journey. When I was growing up, one of the few places you could find me without a book in my hand was a car—just looking at detailed road signs was enough to make me queasy. Instead, I passed the time playing I Spy and the License Plate Game, mapping out our route via Etch-a-Sketch and trading Mad Libs stories with my sisters.

Today, parents can rely on any number of portable electronic games, as well as in-car, flat-screen televisions, to transform their vehicles into audio/visual centers on wheels. But relying on these entertainments comes with some caveats: Using handheld DVD players or video games can increase nausea (as much as any book), and crash tests have found that some removable seat-back DVD players can dislodge and cause injuries during a collision. Besides, one of the pleasures of traveling is escaping from all the trappings of home.

Enter the non-electronic travel game.

While there are many portable games on the market, to ensure the experience is pure fun, parents should avoid anything that has too many pieces, melts if it gets lost in a seat crack, requires siblings to touch each other, or could turn into a dangerous projectile during a collision. Here are four games that will keep kids occupied and off the grid.