I have a friend who, every now and again, gets in her car and heads nowhere in particular until she finds somewhere to spend a day or two. It’s her way of destressing. The romance of it all has always appealed to me.

The Getting Lost game is built on the same concept. Just add three tweens to the back seat, a bit more stress and a LOT less romance. Nevertheless, we decided to give it a go.

What We Did

I bought the game online after seeing it pop up in my Facebook newsfeed a few times. It arrived safe and sound a couple of days later in its very own 3D printed suitcase. Next step was to find a spare day to give it a try.

How It Went

It didn’t start well. It was a drizzly Sunday so the concept of having to go out AND not having any screens was a difficult one for the tweens to grasp.

I finally used a bag of snacks to coax them into the car, and we were ready to go. Time to shuffle the pack and draw the first card.

Without a word of a lie, the first card said, ‘Head for Home’.

The beauty of this game is that you get to make your own rules, so I made a rule that we had to draw at least 10 cards before we could use the ‘Head for Home’ one.

We started again. This time we drew a ‘Turn Right’ card, and then a ‘Follow a White Car’ card which saw us head into the heart of Auckland City. The tweens started to cheer up as the chances of finding fun and food had just increased significantly.

The next card told us to google ‘Lake’ and head to the first search result. We ended up in a cute little neighbourhood playground on the North Shore which was full of ride on toys. The tweens are a little old for that sort of thing, so we drew again and got the ‘Have a Swing’ card. Perfect! We had lots of fun trying to get the perfect ‘jumping off the swing’ boomerang video, and the tweens had to admit this wasn’t so bad after all.

A few more twists and turns later and we pulled a tricky card – go to the nearest town or suburb that starts with the first letter of the youngest child’s name. Red Beach here we come! The rain had stopped so we ventured to the beach to have a picnic lunch and a bit of an explore. We walked, we splashed, we jumped off sand dunes and, by golly, we had fun. So much fun that the tweens really didn’t want to leave, which is why it was no surprise the next card they drew was ‘Stop for a Treat’. Wow, what are the chances!

After ice creams all round, we needed to head for home, but there were more adventures to be had. We had to drive down a street that started with the letter M, stop and take a photo and sing along to the next song – which just happened to be that Kiki one – you know, the one where you jump out of the car and start singing while the car keeps moving. So, in fits of giggles, that’s exactly what we did. On a quiet suburban street of course.

What I’d Recommend

We had a blast. What started out as another Sunday of chores and screen time turned into a fun packed adventure full of unexpected delights. There can be a fair bit of driving involved which might lead to a bit of grizzling, but you can always use your rulemaking powers to keep both of those things to a minimum.

The only downside? We had a time limit of 4 hours so had to cut the adventuring too short for our liking. Still, it left the tweens wanting more which means we’ll definitely be playing the Getting Lost game again – and soon!

The Cost

The game itself cost around $40 including post and packaging – which almost makes it affordable to give as a gift. There is a cheaper version that comes without the little suitcase.

The only other cost is petrol, and whatever you choose to spend on your day of adventure. We set a $50 budget before we left but only ended up spending $15 on ice creams.

The verdict? Thumbs up all round!

Disclaimer: We chose for, and paid for, this experience and the Getting Lost game ourselves after seeing it being advertised and thinking it would be something we – and other families like ours – might enjoy.

You can buy your own Getting Lost game online here.