Travel Games: the Game Folio series

We’re a big game playing family. When the kids were very young, I realized the educational and social benefits of introducing games as a part of our homeschool program, not to mention that games are great when it comes time for family bonding, unless of course you’re playing Risk. But then again, that’s a whole other story that you can read about here, if you’re really interested.

At home we had an armoire full of games. Educational games. Silly games. Classic games. When it came time for us to put our stuff in storage it was so difficult to pack those games! Each one had so many memories associated with it, just like our favorite books.

I was tempted to stash our boxes of games inside the camper, but knew that our space was already limited. Instead, my husband suggested that I purchase some travel size games. Though that is certainly a great suggestion, I’m not a big fan of travel editions. Typically I find that the pieces are too little to be practical, or the games are not quite the quality that I’m looking for. Still, I was reluctant to begin our journey without a couple new games for rainy or cold days.

Amazingly, I found a Connect Four game that I’ve been absolutely thrilled with from the Hasbro Game Folio series. It wasn't long before I added other games from the series. Each game is designed to pack up and play on the go and comes in a zippered case that has built in compartments not only to separate the pieces, but also to serve as storage. When it’s time to play you simply unzip the case and begin. Each case is just under 11’’ X 7’’, and weigh under a pound. Remember, I have teenagers, if you have very young children, you may not appreciate the small pieces, but I’ve found the games to be just the right size for our family.

For weeks we had nightly Connect Four battles that the entire family would get in on, plus, my daughter and I would pack up our game and play while we were washing our laundry each week. When I found Battleship at a thrift store, my boys were thrilled!For weeks Battleship was the game of choice, only recently replaced with our newest Game Folio, Scrabble, which I bought as part of their Christmas present, thinking it was time to add another fun game and because secretly I wanted to work on their spelling and vocabulary skills. See, I don’t always play games just for fun.

I’m not sure that the Connect Four game is still available, though I did find it online at an incredibly inflated $79.99 at Amazon. I’m pretty confident that I didn’t pay that much! Battleship is available at a much more reasonable price. Oh, Hasbro has Scrabble and Yahtzee, which we may add to our little collection next. You may be in luck; I found ours at the local Walmart.

There you have it, my favorite ‘travel size’ games...have you found a brand or game that you really like?

*the pictures for this post are from the Hasbro website and Amazon.com.