What to Print Before You Go
Sudoku is a near-perfect travel puzzle: no battery, no signal, no fuss. What to pack for a flight, road trip or weekend away.
Sudoku is a near-perfect travel puzzle. It fits in a glovebox, on a tray table, in a backpack pocket. It does not need batteries or a signal. It works in the cabin of a small plane and at a campsite an hour from the nearest road. All it needs is a printed page and a pencil.
This post is about what to print before you go. Memorial Day weekend is a good moment to grab a few pages, fold them into a paperback, and hand them out at the dashboard.
What to bring
- One sheet of easy puzzles for everyone, including the back-seat kid who claims to hate sudoku
- One sheet of medium for the long stretches when you really want to disappear
- One sheet of hard or expert for the one person in the family who actually finishes them
- A printed solution page, folded and tucked under the pile
- Two sharp pencils with erasers, not pens
The temptation is to over-pack puzzles. Resist it. A single twenty-puzzle pack is enough for a weekend away. If you finish the pack, that is a problem for next time.
Why paper still beats a phone on a trip
Phone screens glare in sunlight. They die before the trip is over. Other passengers cannot watch you solve, which removes half the fun of doing puzzles on a long drive. Most importantly, a printed pack is a thing you can hand to someone. You cannot share a phone screen the same way.
What to print, by trip type
A four-hour flight: one easy pack, one medium. You will finish maybe five puzzles total. The rest is buffer for the seatmate who asks if you have any extras.
A weekend road trip: one mixed pack and a kids' pack if there are kids. Mixed is forgiving. You do not know which difficulty everyone will be in the mood for, and a mixed pack covers all of them on the same page.
A week-long holiday: one of each. Easy for the relaxed mornings, medium for the afternoons, hard for the evenings when the rest of the family is asleep. A booklet pack is worth printing if you have a stapler, which most hotels do.
The kids problem
Children claim to hate sudoku approximately two seconds before they get hooked on the four-by-four version. The kids' pack uses tiny grids and digits 1 to 4, which is small enough to feel achievable. Bring it. Pretend it is just a colouring activity if you need to. Once they solve one, they will ask for the second.
The pen-or-pencil debate
Bring pencils. Pens commit you to a placement you might want to change. Pencils forgive mistakes. The kid who switches mid-puzzle and erases ten times still ends with a clean grid. The pen kid ends with a smear. Bring pencils.
Where to get them
Every Sudokly pack is free, no email, no signup. The travel-friendly ones are easy, medium, and the mixed pack. Each PDF puts five puzzles per page with solutions on the back, which is the right density for travel. Grab the easy pack, medium pack or mixed pack, fold them in half, and you are done. The full printables page has every category if you want the whole spread.
Have a good trip. Bring a pencil.
Keep reading
- The Summer Pack 2026Free printable sudoku for the long summer afternoons. Twenty puzzles, mixed difficulties, solutions on the back, no signup.
- Starting a Sudoku Without GuessingThe first ten placements are where most guessing happens. A clean opening routine that finds real moves instead of speculation.
- Systematic Scanning: The End of Random StaringMost stuck moments are scanning problems, not puzzle problems. A clean digit-by-digit method that finds placements where random scanning would not.