Best Apps and Games for Kids on a Plane or Road Trip

The best apps for a flight or a long drive are the ones that keep working with no signal. These four do: Wonster Words, Duolingo ABC, Epic, and Khan Academy Kids. Wonster Words has full features available offline once you download its content, and you choose what to download. Duolingo ABC keeps a preset stretch of its lesson path offline, Epic plays what you download on its paid plans, and Khan Academy Kids keeps a preset Offline section, with Create for drawing.

Plan a travel day in two parts: what has to be ready before you leave, and what you can do on the way. An app has to be downloaded and tested at home. A car game needs nothing but the window, so you can choose one once you are on the road.

We make Wonster Words, one of the four apps here, and we tested all four in airplane mode in October 2026.

What are the best apps for kids on a plane or road trip?

An app for a trip has to pass three checks before it is worth downloading: it works offline, you know what is offline and who chooses it, and it is made for your child’s age. The four apps below pass all three.

Two of the four let you choose what goes offline, and two keep a preset set.

App	What works offline	Who chooses what is offline
Wonster Words	Full features: all content, including videos, once downloaded. Progress syncs once the device is back online	You
Duolingo ABC	A preset stretch of its lesson path	The app. Set up any new profile before the trip
Epic	On Epic Family and School Plus plans, every book, audiobook, and video you download	You
Khan Academy Kids	A section labeled “Offline”, with stories, letters, numbers, logic, and letter tracing, plus “Create” for coloring and drawing	The app. The set is preset, and it does not update

Every app here needs a connection to create an account and sign in, free or paid, so do both at home.

Wonster Words: Best for a whole app that goes wherever your child does

Wonster Words gives children ages 2–8 phonics games, stories, and videos that keep working on a plane or in a car, because it has full features available offline once its content is downloaded. You choose what to download, and progress made offline syncs once the device is back online. It has no ads and no way to reach the internet from inside the app.

• Where it fits best: a long trip where you want reading practice your child can play alone, from the alphabet and letter sounds to phonics, spelling, and sight words.
• Best paired with: screen-free games such as I spy with sounds, for the stretches between sessions.
• Price: $10.99 a month or $59.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial.

Duolingo ABC: Best for a free lesson path

Duolingo ABC is a free, ad-free early-reading app for ages 3–8, and it worked offline when we tested it. What it keeps offline is a preset stretch of its lesson path, so a child who stays on the path plays as usual.

• Where it falls short: you do not choose what is downloaded, and Duolingo publishes no limit on how much it keeps.
• Before you go: set up any new child profile at home.

Epic: Best for books you pick for the trip

Epic is a digital library for kids 12 and under, and on its paid plans it plays every book, audiobook, and video you download. You pick each one, and a book’s read-along audio comes with it.

• Where it falls short: offline reading is for the Epic Family and School Plus plans only, and Epic is a library rather than a teaching program.
• Price: $13.99 a month or $84.99 a year.

Khan Academy Kids: Best for a free, ready-made offline set

Khan Academy Kids is free, with no ads, for ages 2–8. It keeps a section labeled “Offline” that works without a connection. The section holds stories, letters, numbers, logic, and letter tracing, and Create, where a child colors and draws, works offline too.

• Where it falls short: the Offline section is preset and does not update, so a child may get through it over several trips. In our use, Create stood up to repeat play better than the rest of the Offline section.

Plane or car: what changes?

On a plane, plan for no connection at all, so the app has to work offline and its sound has to go into headphones. Early reading apps teach by sound, so pack a pair your child will wear.

A car does not change what you download: about nine in ten of the most-used iPads are Wi-Fi-only models, according to TelemetryDeck’s iPad survey, so plan for no signal in the car too. What changes is that you can talk to each other, which makes the car the place for games played out loud.

Screen-free travel games that practice reading

The best car games need nothing you have to pack, and the ones below practice a reading skill while you play. Each one works from a car seat, and none needs a screen. Two of them, I spy and the rhyming round, practice hearing the sounds in words, and the National Reading Panel found that the teaching that builds this skill works in short sessions. A few rounds in the car count.

• I spy, with sounds. “I spy something that starts with /m/.” Say the sound, not the letter’s name. It is the first game on our list of ABC games.
• License-plate letters. Read the letters on the car ahead, and have your child say each sound. For an older child, make a word that starts with the first letter.
• The rhyming round. You say a word, your child says one that rhymes, and made-up words count. Our guide to rhyming activities has more rounds to try.
• One-sentence stories. Take turns adding a sentence to a story, and ask “and then what happened?” whenever it stalls.
• Spotting bingo. Our free car and plane bingo has three boards a sheet, and nobody has to call the words. Spot a truck or a cloud, say the word, and cover it. For bingo at home, our sight word games include a version an adult calls.

Listen for what carries over after the trip: a sound your child names on a sign, or a rhyme they make up on their own.

How much screen time is OK on a travel day?

The American Academy of Pediatrics no longer sets a number of minutes for young children’s screen time. Its January 2026 policy statement asks parents to look at the content instead. On a travel day, that means choosing the apps before you leave, and mixing in games that need no screen.

Traveling for Thanksgiving

The Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after are the heaviest days on the road, according to AAA’s 2025 Thanksgiving forecast. Wonster Words’ own app data shows the same day: on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the share of sessions that start offline is 37% higher than usual.

From November 13 to 30, a Thanksgiving shelf in Wonster Words holds a Thanksgiving memory game and fall and Thanksgiving stories, including What We Are Thankful For, The Thanksgiving Hippo, and Fall. They download for offline play like everything else in the app.

The night before: download, test, charge, pack headphones

Get the tablet ready at home, on Wi-Fi, the evening before you leave:

• Download what your child will play in each app, and set up any new profile.
• Test it with our five-minute airplane-mode check: open every activity with the device offline.
• Charge the tablet, and pack a charger for the car.
• Pack headphones your child will wear.