12 Exciting Ways Your Guests Can Have Fun With Board Games

Are you looking to offer more exciting indoor activities for your guests? Why not provide board games in a common room so your bed and breakfast guests can play and have fun with board games?  This works well when guests want to spend a quiet day inside or when the weather does not permit outdoor time. The following are some of the bestselling games of all time. 

Chess is a 2-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered game board with 64 squares arranged in an 8-by-8 grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people. This Chess Set features felt-bottomed & wooden pieces handcrafted in Poland. The chessmen are gently weighted so they won't tip. The board is made from beech and birch wood.

The object of the game Clue is for players to strategically move around the game board (representing the rooms of a mansion), as one of the game's six characters. Players collect clues so they can deduct (by process of elimination) who committed the murder in the mansion, with which weapon, and in what room.

In 1979, two Canadian journalists wanted to play Scrabble but had to ditch their plans because some of the pieces were missing. Being media people, both were extremely knowledgeable with general information and popular culture. So, Chris Haney and Scott Abbott decided to create a game out of it. They enlisted the help of John Haney and Ed Werner to create Trivial Pursuit. Questions were divided into different categories. In 1984, the game sold over 20 million copies.

Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, bearing a single letter, onto a game board which is divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words in crossword fashion, that flow left to right in rows or downwards in columns. The words must be defined in a standard dictionary. I personally own this particular Deluxe Scrabble edition game that is so easy to use. It conveniently folds into a carrying case with handle and two slide-and-store trays (one to hold the 100 wooden letter tiles in a black velvet drawstring bag and the other tray to hold the 4 deluxe curved tile racks).

Monopoly is an American-originated board game subtitled "The Fast-Dealing Property Trading Game," the game is named after the economic concept of monopoly — the domination of a market by a single entity.  Players move around the game board buying or trading properties, developing their properties with houses and hotels, and collecting rent from their opponents, the ultimate goal being to drive them into bankruptcy.

The game Checkers, (known internationally as draughts) is for two players, in which they make diagonal moves with the aim of capturing the opponent’s pieces by jumping over them. When the pieces make it all the way to the other side of the board, they are "kinged" (another checker piece put on top) so they can move in any direction. The object of the game is to not be the player left with just one piece!

More than 50 million Rummikub units sold, Rummikub is one of the world's bestselling and most played games. Players take turns placing numbered tiles in runs or groups and the first player to use all of their tiles wins! For 2 to 4 players. 

Scattergories is an exciting game which has players see if they can think of different words in various categories that starts with a specific letter (chosen with the roll of a 20-sided letter die). Be different to win points. More than 3,500 category combinations.  Includes six folder-covered answer pads and a total of 48 category cards. It includes specific instructions on how the game is played. This is one of my favorite games to play!

Taboo is a fun and challenging game in which players are not allowed to say certain words (they are taboo and you lose a point for each taboo word spoken) in trying to get other players to guess the word they need them to speak. The fun is in trying to describe something without using the most common words people use to explain them! 

Sequence is a board made up of playing cards. Play a card from your hand and place a chip on a corresponding space on the game board and when you have five chips in a row, you have a sequence! You are competing to see who can come up with the required number of 5-card sequences first. 

With over 1 million games sold, in Buzz Word teams (this game is for 4 or more players) are racing to solve a set of 10 clues before the sand timer runs out. The "Buzzword" (which is found in the top right corner of each card) is contained in the answer to each clue. For example, on the card with the buzzword "Sugar" the first two clues are:

  • "This makes the medicine go down." (Answer: "A Spoon Full of Sugar")
  • "American college football game played in Louisiana." (Answer: "Sugar Bowl")

Apples to Apples is a game of hilarious comparisons for 4 to 10 players. It's as easy as comparing "apples to apples." Select the card from your hand that you think the most like the card played by the judge. If the judge picks your card, you win that round. And everyone gets a chance to be the judge! 

Your bed and breakfast guests will appreciate the break from technology to play fun board games together.  In order to keep all of the pieces together, so that many different guests will enjoy playing the games over the years, one tip is to put the pieces in various plastic baggies: keeping like pieces and cards and pawns together.

If guests give you permission, you can take a picture of them playing in a common area of your bed and breakfast to put on your website or share in social media.  Guests have fun with board games.

Top Image by Marcus Berg of Unique Angles Photography