Top 12 Best Portable Yard Games for Your Outdoor Family Vacation

Looking for a no-nonsense list of the best portable yard games to play during your family vacation? Need a guaranteed way to keep both kids and adults, groups, couples, and or families entertained when you’re outside partying, mingling, vacationing, or camping?

After years of being cabin owners and outdoor enthusiasts, we’ve tried and tested our fair share of lawn games. I have put together a list of our favorite ‘go-to’ games that our family comes back to time-after-time, year-after-year.

The following list contains the highest rated and best-priced options of my Top 12 recommended yard games. While you might not be able to pack your trampoline, these yard games are easy to pack when on the go.

If you’re headed to a cabin, resort, campground, or to your own backyard, these games will provide hours of built-in entertainment.

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Kubb

Number of Players: 2-12 players. Kubb is played one team against another with a minimum of 1 player on each team. For larger groups, up to 6 players can play on a team.

Equipment: The equipment consists of 10 small, wooden skittles (kubbs), one larger, wooden skittle (the king), and 6 throwing sticks (batons). Sometimes 4 small corner stakes are also included to mark out the court.

Objective: Be the first team to knock down all of your opponent’s kubbs. Fianlly, knock over the king, all by throwing wooden batons.

How to Play Kubb

Kan Jam

Number of Players: 4 players. Kan Jam is played one team against another, with 2 players on each team.

Equipment: Kan Jam consists of 2 black circular bins (each bin with a mail slot in the front), and 2 frisbees. 

Objective: Be the first team to score exactly 21 points by throwing your frisbee into the mail slot of your opponent’s bin, or by having the Deflector hit the frisbee into the top of the bin. 

How to Play Kan Jam

Ladder Toss

Number of Players: 2-6 players. Ladder ball is played one team against another. There is a minimum of 1 player per team and a maximum of 3 players per team.

Equipment: 2 ladders each consisting of 3 steps: a top, middle and a bottom step. 6 golf ball bolas. A bola is 2 golf balls attached by a nylon rope. Each player or team gets 3 bolas.

Objective: Be the first team to score exactly 21 points by wrapping bolas around the rungs of your opponent’s ladder.

How to Play Ladder Toss

Bocce Ball

Number of Players:2-8 players. Bocce ball is played by one team against another with a minimum of 1 player per team. The number of bocce balls played by each player is determined by the number of players per team.

One player per team yields four bocce balls per player; two players per team yields two bocce balls per player; four players per team yields one bocce ball per player.

Equipment: 8 larger bocce balls (4 of each color), and 1 small pallino ball also called ‘the jack’.

Objective: Be the first team to score exactly 12 points by rolling your bocce balls closer to the pallino (jack) ball than your opponent.

How to Play Bocce Ball

Lawn Darts

Number of Players: 2-4 players. Lawn darts is played by one team against another. There is a minimum of 1 player per team, and a maximum of 2 players per team.

Equipment: 2 circular target areas, and 4 total lawn darts (2 darts per color, per team).

Objective: Be the first team to score exactly 21 points by tossing your darts in or near your opponent’s circular target area.

How to Play Lawn Darts

Croquet

Number of Players: 2-6 players. Croquet can be played one team against another, or player versus player depending on the style of croquet that you are playing.

Equipment: 6-player croquet consists of 6 different color wooden mallets, 6 corresponding colored croquet balls, 2 stakes, and 9 wickets.

Objective: Be the first player or team to advance your croquet ball(s) through all of the scoring wickets (hoops) in the correct order and direction.

In more advanced play, the object of the game is to advance your ball through the course scoring points for each wicket and stake in the correct order and direction. The winner is the first side to score 14 wicket points and 2 stake points for each of its balls.

How to Play Croquet

Frisbee Golf

Number of Players: 1-8 players. Individuals can play by themselves or play one team against another similar to a regular golf game. However, no more than 4 players per team are recommended.

Equipment: Different sizes and weights of frisbees/discs that serve as the golf ‘clubs’, 1 (or more) elevated metal basket disc catchers.

Objective: The main objectives of frisbee golf is the same as traditional golf in the sense that players follow the same scorekeeping technique. The player or team with the lowest score at the end of 9 or 18 ‘holes’ wins the game.

How to Play Frisbee Golf

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SpikeBall

Number of Players: 2-6 players. Spikeball is played one team against another. There is a minimum of 1 player per team, and a maximum of 3 players per team.

Equipment: 1 small trampoline-like playing surface with string netting, and 1 small bouncing ball (the ‘spikeball‘) with a 12-inch circumference.

Objective: Be the first team to score 21 points upon serving, setting, and spiking the ball from anywhere around the net upon which the opposing team is unable to return the ball.

How to Play Spikeball

Washer Toss

Number of Players: 2-8 players. Washer toss is played one team against another. There is a minimum of 1 player per team, and a maximum of 4 players per team.

Equipment: 8 metal washers (4 per color, per team), and two washer toss boxes.

Objective: Be the first team to score exactly 21 points by pitching your washers into the opponent’s washer box and/or cylindrically-shaped cup inside of the box.

How to Play Washer Toss

Badminton

Number of Players: 2-12 players. Badminton is played by one team against another. There is a minimum of 1 player per team, and a maximum of 6 players per team. (You must have enough racquets for each player.)

Equipment: 1 badminton net and desired number of racquets along with a feathered or plastic projectile called a shuttlecock.

Objective: In badminton, a match is played as the best 2 of 3 games, with each game played up to 21 points. Points are scored when the opposing team is unable to return the shuttlecock back over the net after being served to by the opposing team.

How to Play Badminton

Cornhole

Number of Players: 2-4 players. In addition, cornhole is played by one team against another. There is a minimum of 1 player per team, and a maximum of 2 players per team.

Equipment: 2 official cornhole boards and 8 bean bags (4 per color, per team).

Objective: Be the first team to score exactly 21 points by landing your bean bags onto the opposing team’s cornhole board (1 point), or directly into the hole (3 points).

How to Play Cornhole

Bottle Bash (Polish Horseshoes)

Number of Players: 2-4 players (all who have to be holding a drink at all times). Bottle bash is played one team against another, typically with two players per team.

Equipment: 1 frisbee, 2 tall stakes with a platform on top, 2 plastic bottles or empty beer cans (if playing with adults).

Objective: Be the first team to score 21 points, beating the opposing team by at least 2 points. Points are scored when the frisbee hits the opponent’s stake or bottle, when the bottle is knocked off the stake and hits the ground, or when the receiving team fails to catch the frisbee.

How to Play Bottle Bash

What game caught your attention and where will you be playing it?

Jen

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