They're also educational: don't tell the kids, but they'll be exercising their language skills, speaking skills, memory, creativity, imagination and observation.
1) Twenty Questions
To play Twenty Questions, first choose a category, such as famous people, animals, superheroes, or whatever your children are interested in. One player chooses something that would belong in this category (e.g. Batman, if you are doing superheroes) without telling anyone else who or what has been chosen. The other players take turns to ask questions that can be answered with Yes or No, to try and guess who or what it is. Good questions might be 'Are they male / female?', or 'Can they fly?'. The winner is the person who guesses the correct answer. If nobody guesses, the player who chose the secret answer wins. This is a good game for encouraging children to develop logical thinking, as well as exercising their memory and imagination.
2) Just a Minute
In this scaled down version of the game played on radio shows, players are asked to talk about a topic for one minute, without hesitating or going off topic. If children are old enough, try adding in the rule that they can't repeat any nouns or adjectives. If the player breaks one of the rules, the other players can challenge and take over talking about the same topic, until the person who is talking at the end of the minute wins. This is a great game for developing language skills, speaking skills, creativity and memory.
3) I-Spy
To play I-Spy, the first player looks around for something that everyone would be able to see for a reasonable length of time. They say 'I Spy, with my little eye, something beginning with...' and then the first letter or sound of the name for the thing they have chosen, e.g. 'T' for tree, or maybe 'ch' for church. The other players try to guess what it is, and when someone guesses the right answer, it is their turn to choose the next thing to 'spy'. This game develops observational skills, as well as phonics for younger players.
4) Making up Stories
Start off by telling the very beginning of a story. Players take turns to tell each sentence, or even each word, using their imagination, creativity and language skills to develop the rest of the story. If they enjoy this, you could try recording the stories, or making them into books with pictures later.
5) Rhyme Time
This is a very simple word game that everyone joins in with together. Say the beginning of a sentence, and the other players have to finish it with a rhyming word, for example, 'There was a bee, who sat in a...tree.' They can then begin the next line to make a longer poem.
6) Travel Bingo
This game requires some preparation ahead of time. Look at your route and make each player a list of placenames, landmarks, or other unusual sights you expect to see along the way (unusual animals, trees, rock formations etc). Players call out when they see one of them, and cross it off their list, until the winner is the first one to see everything on their list.
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