I grew up with a Yahtzee family. A card game family. A family where, every vacation, we spent hours around the table playing Uno, Hearts, or Hand and Foot.
So I guess vacation and games go together for me.
Last month, I took a two-week trip to Mexico with my husband and three-year-old son. We were there to visit my husband’s family, and the schedule was going to be very relaxed. Slow mornings at my mother-in-law’s house. Long lunches with relatives. Lazy nights watching movies with the fan on high, because the city where my husband is from is hot.
The thing is, his family doesn’t play games quite as much as mine does. But with all that downtime, I knew I’d want something to play.
That was doubly true because, truth be told, I was a little anxious to travel. I had a rough travel experience last year, so I wasn’t sure how this trip would go. I felt like staying off my phone and spending time on nostalgic hobbies like gaming might be good for my nervous system.
So, I brought my deck of cards, looked up some solo card games, and went to town. Any time my family was chilling—my son with his trucks, my husband with his handheld console, my mother-in-law with her journals—I whipped out my cards and played a round by myself.
It was so much fun, and exactly what I needed to unwind!
These are the games I played on my holiday. They got me through many a slow morning (and distracted me from the heat). Best of all, they were pretty quick to get through, so they didn’t suck too much of my time if I only had a few minutes before another family dinner.
Whether you’re looking for a solo card game to play on vacation, or just a game to relax with at the end of a long day, I recommend you give these a try.
One-Handed Solitaire
One-Handed Solitaire became my go-to game for airplane and bus rides on my trip, because you play the entire game with one hand. (Though you also need a spot for discards, so keep that in mind.)
To play, you simply hold a face-down deck of cards in one hand, then draw four cards from the back and move them face-up to the front. These four cards are your hand, and you start looking for patterns between the first and fourth card.
Same suit? Discard the two cards in between them. Same number? Discard all four!
You continue through the deck that way, seeing how many you can discard. The goal is to remove as many cards from your hand as possible before the deck runs out.
This game is obviously perfect for travel, because it takes up next to no real estate. Better yet, it only takes five minutes to play.
My personal downside is that it is all luck, and I like a little strategy in my games. I also found that my hand started cramping after a while, because eventually I was holding a lot of cards at once!
Want something with a little more strategy? Let me introduce my next game…
Scoundrel
Scoundrel is a solo dungeon-crawler that’s very easy to learn—but not so easy to win!
The basics are simple: you lay out four cards as your current dungeon. Diamonds are weapons you use to fight enemies, which are represented by black cards. Hearts heal you.
Pretty straightforward, right? That’s what makes it so fun to pick up and see how far you can get before you run out of health.
On vacation, this game was great with coffee at the kitchen table. Each round takes about 10 to 20 minutes to play. Since the original game removes a lot of face cards, I modified the game a bit to use the whole deck of cards.
Speaking of, there is a whole host of homebrews for this game, which just speaks to its popularity!
Just keep in mind that four cards plus a deck, a discard pile, and a place for your weapon card take up a lot of space… so this isn’t the best game for an airplane tray table!
You can find more about Scoundrel, developed by Zach Gage and Kurt Bieg, here —> SCOUNDREL
And now for my favorite game of the trip…
Loot the Loop
Loot the Loop is basically a treasure hunt through a deck of cards. You’re looking around, turning over cards as you discover them, and manipulating when you encounter them again to collect treasure.
Your main goal is to gather four jewels, represented by the four Aces. But number cards determine how far you can travel, and face cards are traps you need to avoid or you lose instantly. If you manage to collect all the Aces, you then have to land on the Joker to escape the tomb.
This is one of those solo card games that’s easiest to learn by watching someone else play. (Thank you, Totally Tabled on YouTube!) But once you understand the rules, it’s surprisingly easy to play—and extremely hard to win!
I must have played Loot the Loop twenty times on vacation and only won once. But that’s part of what makes the game so addicting.
I love the tomb-raiding theme and the innovative way you use the cards. I’ve never seen a game quite like it. For me, the best part was how much strategy the game requires.
For travel, Loot the Loop only requires enough real estate to lay down your Aces and save up to three number cards for exploration. I could just barely play it on an airplane tray table—so at least that was a win for me.
Depending on how far you get before you hit a trap, Loot the Loop might take anywhere from five to twenty minutes. That makes it ideal for those in-between times when you need a little entertainment, whether you’re on-the-go or not.
You can find more about Loot the Loop, developed by Wil Su as part of a collection of 10 solo card games, right here —> LOOT THE LOOP
And if you want to find even more solo playing card games, I recommend Wil Su’s full game collection, called Isaludo. As he has freely shared the PDF online, I will share it here as well—all credit to him for these incredible games!
It’s games like these that have inspired me to make my own games. (You can find my first game right here on the blog: The Long Road, a solo card game inspired by dark fantasy games like Elden Ring.)
And yes, like the nerd I am, I also spent time on my vacation working on my next card game. Let me know if you’d be interested in play-testing for me! I hope to share with you all here soon. :)
Have you played any of these games? If you have recommendations for other solo card games (or even games you can play with a tarot deck!), please send them my way! I love discovering new games, and I hope you enjoy these should you decide to give them a go… whether you’re on vacation or not.
Ashley
Leave a Reply