Trails, a Family and Strategy Game About Hiking and Outdoors Even though itвЂ™s smaller and simpler to understand, itвЂ™s still вЂњa beautiful, great, strategic game.вЂќ вЂњItвЂ™s like the boiled down version of a really great game,вЂќ says Mik Fitch, who along with his wife, Starla, runs the YouTube channel Our Family Plays Games. Its lower cost and small size means it can travel easily. But where Parks can take up to an hour to play, Trails is a shorter jaunt. The smaller, lighter successor to Parks (which earned a spot on our 2019 Best Board Games list), Trails follows a similar formula: Players visit national parks, take photos, look for wildlife and collect souvenirs. Good for: Your family member who owns a National Parks passport If you want to gift one of these games for an upcoming holiday, donвЂ™t wait to buy!) Trails (And just a note: The supply-chain issues youвЂ™ve read about-caused in part by labor and shipping container shortages-are real. We hope their picks get you as excited about cardboard and plastic as they did us. As usual, to create this yearвЂ™s list, we spoke with board game sellers and board game fans from around the country. Board game lovers who had turned to virtual versions can now beat the video-chat fatigue with in-person competitions. Unlike 2020, however, the availability of vaccines-now even for many children-has made it possible to gather with friends and loved ones in real life. In year two of the pandemic, who would have guessed that Covid-19 variants and a politicized resistance to vaccines would keep many of us sheltering for another winter? ItвЂ™s safe to say that this year did not go as many of us expected. This year's picks include Trails, Cascadia and the Initiative.

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