License Plate Photo Game

If you have taken a road trip in the United States you probably have heard of and played the license plate game.   Every car in the US has a license plate with the name of the state where the car is licensed and a unique combination of numbers/letters and a motto.  Some are prettier than others according to the kids.

Screen Shot 2019-02-12 at 09.57.15

Now in the digital age there are apps for tracking, but back int he day, most people just printed out a list of the states and you made a check mark on the ones you find.  But as we spent a month in New England last summer, our 8 & 10 year olds were keen on taking photos of all the different plates to see if they could get all 50.   And being a typical 10 year old boy, about 5 days into our trip, he deleted ALL the photos on his sisters camera wiping out all photos.  GRRR!!!  Anyway, we of course, we knew it would be a huge challenge, but it was a fun thing to do as we went around the various states and did our touristy things.   As we were visiting Cape Cod and Maine – both huge vacation areas in the summer, I was sure we’d see some cool ones.  And we did – Wyoming, Washington State, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado to name some.

Not bad that we got 34 plus some bonus ones.

The 50 States and the District of Columbia (HAVE THE ONES IN GREEN)

Alabama                        Hawaii                 Michigan              North Carolina      Utah
Alaska                            Idaho                    Minnesota            North Dakota        Vermont
Arizona                          Illinois                  Mississippi           Ohio                        Virginia
Arkansas                       Indiana                 Missouri               Oklahoma              Washington
California                      Iowa                      Montana               Oregon                   West Virginia
Colorado                        Kansas                  Nebraska              Pennsylvania        Wisconsin
Connecticut                   Kentucky             Nevada                  Rhode Island         Wyoming
Delaware                       Louisiana             New Hampshire  South Carolina
District of Columbia    Maine                   New Jersey            South Dakota
Georgia                           Maryland            New Mexico          Tennessee
Florida                            Massachusetts    New York              Texas

Alaska and Hawaii are the most difficult and we didn’t find them.  But my sister sent me a photo of Alaska on her recent move from Maine to South Carolina – so we can’t take credit for that super unique find!

alaska

We consider these two, a US Government & Consul, to be bonus ones.

ConsulUS Government

But the most super cool one which we’d never expect to get was MEXICO!

Mexico.jpg

What I like most about the license plate game is that not only is it fun for the kids and easy to play.  It is also educational, because as the person plays, they learn the names of all the states that make up the United States of America.   And while our kids are half American, they spent more of their lives living abroad, so this helps with their knowledge and geography of the USA.

I mentioned we were in Maine for some of our trip, so of course, we’d get some Canadian plates too including New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Ontario and Nova Scotia.
NewBruinswick CanadaNovaScotiaCanadaOntarioCanadaPEI Canada
Not sure when our next trip back to the US will be but we’ll certainly be on the look out for the remaining plates.
Alabama                    Hawaii                  New York
Arkansas                   Indiana                 North Dakota
Connecticut              Iowa                      Ohio
Delaware                  Louisiana             Oregon
Georgia                      Montana              South Dakota

Florida                      Nebraska

If we’re in Orlando, I bet we’d find the rest of the plates super fast.

After I look at the list another time, how is it possible that after spending a month in New England, how didn’t we get a photo of a NEW YORK or CONNECTICUT plate??   Probably on the photos my 10 year old friend “accidentally” deleted after pushing tons of buttons when he shouldn’t have 🙂

Author: Stars Stripes and Mayonnaise

I am an American currently living in the Netherlands. I enjoy snapping photos and blogging along the way about our family’s journey as we moved from USA to the UK for a couple years then onto Ireland for three & half years and now in our next adventure in the Netherlands where the kids and are are learning Dutch. As you can probably tell by the name of the blog “Stars, Stripes & Mayonnaise” our family is half American & half Dutch and if you know one thing about the Dutch is that they LOVE their mayonnaise! I seen ’em do it man, they fuckin‘ drown ’em in it. When I started this blog way when it was to capturing memories of our family – essentially a journal of our family adventures, their love of mayonnaise, my love of photography, D.I.Y., crafting, sea glass hunting and exploring with our two amazing kids.

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