My favorite games to play while traveling

We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to entertaining ourselves on the road. Gone are the days of the crossword puzzle books and Yes & Know invisible ink activity books my brothers and I used to fill the time on family trips when I was young. Now, between my Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, and Samsung mobile phone, I can bring a sizable chunk of my games library with me when I travel—the only difficulty is deciding which games are best for the voyage.

Any kind of travel imposes some limitations on what I can play, of course. On the unstable Wi-Fi available on planes and in most hotels, for instance, big battle royale games like Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite are basically out of the question. If I’ll be spending time in an airport terminal or waiting for a train, I want to make sure that whatever I’m playing doesn’t demand my undivided attention, and that I can put it down at a moment’s notice. That rules out a lot of narrative-heavy games with lengthy cutscenes, because I want to be able to pay close attention to these stories and, you know, lose myself in them a bit.

I also try to be conscientious toward my fellow travelers, so when I’m on a plane or bus, I don’t want to be playing something that’s going to shock or alarm a passenger sitting next to me—I once realized this could be an issue when I fired up The Binding of Isaac on my Switch during a packed cross-country flight.

There’s another criteria for good travel games, and it’s much more difficult to nail down to specifics because it’s essentially vibes. A game has to have the right mood or evoke the right feeling while I’m in that weird transitional period between where I was and where I’m going. It’s not that the games themselves have to be about liminal spaces, they just have to make crossing it a bit more pleasant.