Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride

Board Game
2-5 Players
About 45 Minutes
Grade 3 and Up
Game Schooler Recommendation

Ticket to Ride is a great family game with easy to learn rules.  It’s competitive, but it isn’t mean. Your gamers explore spatial perception and logistics as they map their routes across the board, and must think critically and tactically in order to adapt on the fly. Kids gain confidence as they complete each ticket while carefully managing time and resources.  In addition to these great skills, Ticket to Ride offers opportunities to reinforce arithmetic and geography. As the game progresses, players collect different sets of trains by drafting cards, and cash in their cards to place routes on the map. There’s a wonderful tension between hoarding your cards to make a longer route AND accounting for what the other gamers are trying to do.

Game Overview

Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.

Skills
  • Competition Competition
    Develops healthy competitive habits as two or more parties compete for a goal that cannot be shared.
  • Logistics Logistics
    Allows players to manage production flow between the point of origin and consumption.
  • Spatial Perception Spatial Perception
    Strengthens a player’s understanding of the spatial relationships with the objects in their environment as well as themselves.
  • Strategic Thinking Strategic Thinking
    Encourages players to develop a process or long-term strategy for accomplishing a goal.
  • Tactical Thinking Tactical Thinking
    Challenges players to make decisions based on currently available information.
  • Confidence Confidence
    Promotes and increases a player’s trust in their abilities and qualities.
  • Resource Management Resource Management
    Boosts a player’s capacity to efficiently and effectively oversee available assets.
  • Time Management Time Management
    Improves a player’s ability to organize and plan how long they spend on specific activities.
Game Details
  • Type: Family Game
  • Category: Board Game
  • Designer(s): Alan R. Moon
  • Published: 2004
  • Game Length: About 45 Minutes
  • Players: 2-5 Players
Awards
  • 2004 - Spiel des Jahres Winner
  • 2004 - Origins Awards Best Board Game Winner
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