Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride

Editor's rating:
8.3
Reviewed by Bobby Brower
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We like

Teaches kids geography

The game allows kids and adults to play with others

Helps build logic skills

It’s a great game for the whole family to play together

Easy to keep and follow the score

Teaches kids healthy and fair competition

We don’t like

Comes with a lot of pieces

The directions may be hard to follow

How it works

Ticket To Ride by Days of Wonder is a competitive board game where you compete against one to four other players to see who can visit the most cities in North America in just seven days. The game takes place during the time when Phileas Fogg went around the world in eighty days, and five friends got together for their own time-sensitive competition.

The game can be played between two to five players. The way you get around the North American continent is to travel by train, and points are awarded for the longest uninterrupted train route around the continent. The characters in the game are all striving to win $1,000,000. 

 

Design

Design

Days of wonder ticket to ride comes with many small pieces. To start, there are five colors that you can choose from to represent your character. The colors to choose from are either yellow, black, orange, blue, or green. Each color comes with 48 trains, however, you only need 45 to play, so three trains of each color can remain in the game box in the event that you lose any of the trains. Each color also comes with a scoring marker that is used throughout gameplay to keep track of your score.

The game board is a map of North America that has the various train routes you can take lined out in front of you so that you can place your trains on the board and develop your routes around the continent.

The game also comes with a deck of train cards for you to use during play that helps you navigate gameplay along with train ticket cards that help you determine which route you are going to build and take around the North American continent. There are several cards in the deck that are wild cards that represent any color train. You can mix these with any set of colors to gain the amount of trains necessary to complete the route that you are trying to claim.
Age Range

Age Range

Ticket To Ride is not recommended for children under the age of eight-years-old as they will not have the attention span or patience to sit through a game of strategy and learning. Children younger than eight-years-old would be better suited for a game that offers less rules to follow and better visual and sensory stimulation.

Days of wonder ticket to ride is recommended for children ages eight-years-old and older. Due to the fact that the pieces are all small and pose a very large choking hazard for young kids, it is recommended that parents are always present if a young child is around the game board while other kids are playing.
How To Play

How To Play

Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride can be complicated as there are a lot of rules to follow and a lot of pieces to move around and use.

To start the game, you must put out the game board, which is the map of the continent. Each player then chooses which color they want to be. Once that is chosen, each player takes their forty-five trains and places them in front of them. Then each player is dealt four train cards for them to look at along with three train ticket cards. The dealer then takes five train cards and places them face-up on the top of the board along with a longest route card for extra points, and then the score markers are placed on the “100” spot along the edge of the board. Once all of this is set up, you can begin to play.

To gain points you must pick the same color and type of train cards for the number of train spots there are in a particular route. If there is a route for a particular number of train cars, you must have that exact number of cars in that color on your cards to claim that route. Once you claim the route, that route cannot be taken from you and now belongs to you. The longer the train route, the more points you get and the person with the most points at the end of the game wins. As you gain more and more points, move your score marker around the board to the spot with your number of points to keep track of how many points you have. Read the directions that come with the game in order to know all the rules and ways to play the game.
Keeping Score

Keeping Score

Keeping score is easy with ticket to ride days of wonder as the scorecard is not only located on the board itself, but there is also a scorecard in the deck that you can pass around to anyone who needs to see it up close. The scoring points are: 1 train car equals one point, 2 train cars equal two points, 3 train cars equals four points, 4 train cars equals seven points, 5 train cars equals ten points, and 6 train cars equals 15 points. As you gather up your cars, you keep adding points to your score. Every time your score changes, move your score token to the numbered space along the edge of the board that matches the number of points you have earned. This way, everyone playing the game can see how many points each person has and everyone knows the score of the game. This also promotes fair play as no one can cheat their score because everyone is keeping track of the scoring together.
Social

Social

Ticket To Ride is a great game for letting kids play with other kids and learning solid social skills. This can also be a family board game that allows kids to get together and interact with each other in person instead of over a computer or through a screen. In today’s world, many children play by themselves with games on their tablets or smartphones or by simply watching a movie or TV show on a screen and not interacting with others. With a board game like Ticket To Ride, kids get to play one on one or in groups. This allows children to learn important social skills while they are playing, and they will learn how to talk to other kids, joke with other kids, and play with other kids in a fair way where they can compete against each other and learn about competition and learn about being a gracious winner and a gracious loser.
Quality Time

Quality Time

Playing days of wonder ticket to ride also allows for families to spend time together and play together. Also, these board games have a lot of benefits for your family. When families get a chance to sit down and play a game together, they can communicate with each other and talk to each other about their day, what’s going on in their lives, and they can create a tighter bond that will help them develop a certain level of trust and they can have a better relationship with each other. Board games are a great way for families to not be distracted by screens or other electronic games that take the attention away from talking to each other or paying attention to the conversation. Board games like Ticket To Ride are age-appropriate for almost anyone in the family, so all members of the family can sit around the table and play and compete against each other.
Logic Skills

Logic Skills

Days of wonder ticket to ride also builds on your child’s logic skills at being able to design and build a route across the country to as many cities in North America as possible. In order to successfully do this, you must be able to plot out and plan what is going to happen next in the game by seeing what your opponents are doing and what they could eventually be plotting. When your child begins to use this skill, he or she can use it in any situation in life whether it’s at school, at work, or solving life’s problems. Being able to build on logic skills also helps in the educational process of learning and being able to learn to your full potential.
Geography

Geography

Another great perk to playing days of wonder ticket to ride is that it is also a game of geography. Children and some adults who play the game can get a chance to learn the map of the United States and Canada as they play the game. The routes are connecting some of America’s biggest and most popular cities, and kids will get to see the map of the United States and where on the map these cities and these states are located. Ticket to ride days of wonder will expose children to the location of states and cities. The train routes also go through some Canadian cities, so children will also get a chance to learn where the Canadian cities are located in Canada as well as the names of some of the more southern Canadian provinces. The geographical learning of the countries of North America is all made possible through playing.
Parental Concerns

Parental Concerns

The only parental concerns that were found with days of wonder ticket to ride is that some of the game boards that were delivered to some homes did not have a game board that would lie flat. As a result of this, many of the train pieces would not stay on their respective spots and would tip over or come off the board. When purchasing Ticket To Ride over the Internet, it is always a good idea to not only know where the purchase is coming from, but from whom you are receiving the game as this may be able to enlighten the buyer as to the possibility of receiving a game that is damaged or broken or has already been used and altered.
Price

Price

Ticket To Ride leans more towards the more expensive side of the price range for a game that does not come with anything electronic or needs batteries or any other kind of aid to work. The game is a classic style board game that has regular pieces and cards and for the price to be in the range that it is seems a bit steep. Many could argue that there is a great educational value to the game, and some could argue that the game comes with a lot of pieces, but the game may be out of the budget for some parents and if so, there are other games on the market of this kind. For those parents who can fit Ticket To Ride into their budget, the game offers a lot educationally from geography lessons to logic building skills to the building of social skills and verbal interaction. This game is great for the board game enthusiast who loves to chat and play games with others.

Conclusion

Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride is a great game for the child who loves competitive games and having fun while learning. The game not only exposes your child to geography, but it also teaches your child other valuable life lessons and educational lessons. Your child will be able to interact socially in-person with other kids or family members creating stronger bonds and creating relationships. On the educational side, your child will learn the cities of the United States and their location as well as build on skills such as logic that will enable them to see what their opponent is doing and learn how to get ahead in the game before their opponent does.

Although the game comes with a bigger price tag than most board games of this kind, days of wonder ticket to ride is a great buy for the parent who can fit this type of game into their budget. The game is unique and will keep your child guessing and learning while they are playing. This game should be considered by any parent who wants their child to interact with others face to face to learn all while having fun during the process. You could also check our guide for best teens board games.
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