The Way to play road is an incredible open-ended toy that allows your children (and you) to create toy roads and worlds. It is a flexible race track made from child-safe rubber, fantastic for endless fun. We love to play with it at home, and it has been one of our favorite play activities this summer. We bought the Way to play King of the Road set for my son’s 3rd birthday, and he loved it. We’ve been playing and creating ever since.

When we started to play with the set, we began piecing segments together, and then we realized that, on many occasions, we couldn’t make the track close perfectly. Then, of course, we could overlap the final segments at the end, but that bothered me a bit (and my son too).

I know that the beauty of open-ended toys is to explore without rules and have fun. So we’ve created many open roads that lead to nowhere and everywhere simultaneously, without any planning or strategy in mind. And it has been a blast. But I also like to create beautiful designs and close tracks, which is more challenging (I couldn’t find many examples in one place).

If you are anything like me and want some road design ideas, you’ve come to the right place. So I thought I’d share with you the ones we have created at home for some quick and easy inspiration.

In this post:

• Why do we like to play with the Way to play road?
• The Way to play King of the Road set
• 25+ great Way to play road designs
• Our favorite complements
• What is the Way to play road made of?
• Where to buy it?
• Way to play road idea designs to help you enjoy the King of the Road set

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you; when you buy through the links, we may earn a small commission. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks! 

Why do we like to play with the Way to play road?

There are many reasons why we enjoy and encourage our children to play with the road:

• An open-ended tool with endless possibilities.
• It is an exciting invitation to creativity.
• A fantastic complement to other toys
• It can be challenging and helps with problem-solving; not all combinations lead to a closed-track, so it takes time to figure out how to make your track fit and close.
• It is a flexible toy that can be used on land and underwater and on many surfaces. Check out here for more ideas.
• Durable and unbreakable (although my son did bite one piece pretending it was pizza, and now we have his teeth prints as a reminder.
• Very easy to clean

It is lovely and so much fun.

The Way to play King of the Road set

The Way to play road is a flexible race track made from child-safe rubber fantastic for endless fun. It is a collection of road segments, race tracks, parking spaces, and crossings in different sets that can be combined.

We got the King of the Road bundle; it comes with 40 pieces to create many tracks. It is their most extensive set. The box comes with 16 curves, 16 straights, 4 intersections, and 4 roundabouts. So if you want 648cm of fun, this is the box for you (they’ve measured it😉 ).  

All pieces are reversible and have a different design on each side. The only exceptions are the intersections and roundabouts, which have the same design on both sides. Here you can see what you have on each side and what you can expect.

It is also great to combine it with the other sets of the Way to play family. We can’t wait to get our hands on some of those. But, of course, we’ll have to wait for Santa to stop by.

25+ great Way to play road designs

It’s time to see some designs! I’ve taken the liberty to name them, so I can differentiate between them because there are more than 25 here, which made things easier for me. These are names we’ve made up as a family because the design reminded us of something or we were just being silly. This is how we named

I hope you will like them!

Types of road designs:

• Basic shapes
• Perfect-fit closed-circuit road designs
• Closed circuits with overlaps
• Way to play road with Wobbel bridge

Basic shapes

Here are just a couple of straightforward closed-circuit designs that you can make with almost all the sets: the circle and the oval. Of course, you can make shorter or longer versions of these. 

Perfect fit Closed-circuit Way to play road designs

I love these designs. I like combining curves and straights to make race tracks. The cars can go on forever here. I’ve used all the 16 curves in the following six designs, so you need the King of the Road or more than one of the other waytoplay sets to create these.

Here we are introducing the intersection and roundabout pieces for crossings. There will probably be more traffic and car concentration now 😉 even more if you place traffic lights 🤣

Closed-circuits with overlaps

These road designs do not fit all the pieces perfectly. At some point or another, I have ended the circuit by placing one piece on top of another because there was no other way to make them work. 

I am pointing out in the pictures where this happens, so you do not get frustrated trying to make it fit perfectly – when it doesn’t.

Way to play road with Wobbel Bridge

Here you have a couple of road designs with the Wobbel Board. I had seen many on Pinterest and found it quite tricky to make them work. I then realized that those beautiful pictures must have more than one set of waytoplay.

Open-ended roads

And, of course, you can always create open-ended roads that lead to everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They don’t close or fit; they go until you are out of pieces to add to the road. So there is no need for designs here 😉 . Instead, I’m leaving these to your imagination because I am sure they will be unique and wonderful. You don’t need my help here.

Our favorite complements

So, playing with the track is so much fun, but we like combining it with other toys at home, and then it is just fantastic. (Yes, I know, I enjoy this part too much 😅 ).

We use the Grimm’s rainbow, the Bilibo seat, and the Wobbel board as bridges and passways.

We use Grimm’s rainbow friends, Grapat Tomtems, Janod Story characters, Duplo friends, or any superhero or princess that my children want to play with as the little inhabitants of our tiny world.

I love to decorate with loose parts from Grapat, Grimm’s semicircles and houses, trees from Janod, and anything I get my hands on, to create miniature worlds that they will enjoy diving into.

And of course, what would be of a road without cars, trucks, and things that go? We have wooden cars, metal cars, and plastic cars. Anything with wheels goes on the road. My favorite wooden car brands are Janod, Little Dutch, Melissa & Doug, Grimm’s, Wayoplay, Lubulona, and Candylab. Do not think we have cars from all of them! (I wish 😅) But they are just lovely, and some are on our wishlist for future occasions. I thought I’d share their names with you in case you might want to explore them.

What is the Way to play road made of?

The road is made from the highest grade flexible PVC, and it has passed testing to the most demanding norms. They say that it is supposed to last a lifetime and is practically indestructible, even for children! 

They have been tested and are free of BPA, cadmium, PAH, lead, and Phthalates. If you have a silicone allergy, it is also safe for you.

So the roads are durable, waterproof, safe, and flexible – that makes them the perfect ally for hours and years of play.

Where to buy it?

I haven’t seen them in many physical toy stores, but I have been able to find them in stores online, and Waytoplay has an online store that delivers worldwide. You won’t find a store with a more extensive selection than their own: waytoplay store. You’ll find everything here!

If you like to buy more things from other brands at once, of course, you have Amazon, but depending on the country, it might not have what you are looking for. So I am sharing other web pages I have bought from while living in the UK and Spain (some are local, but others have international deliveries). For this reason, I’m listing all in case one can be most helpful to you. Additionally, although I haven’t bought from them, I am also listing some stores from Australia (based on customers’ comments and opinions on Instagram). If I were in those countries, I would definitely try them out.

Store with International deliveries

Waytoplay – You’ll find everything from them here and they ship internationally.

Amazon – You can find the King of the Road here.

Scandiborn.com – They have different sister pages around the world. See links below

Oskar’s Wooden Ark – Oskar’s Wooden Ark is based in Australia. They also provide international shipping to selected countries (New Zealand; United States; Canada, Singapore & South Korea) using Australia Post.

Store with delivery in the EU

Scandiborn – You can find all the Waytoplay roads available here.

Store with delivery in the UK

scandiborn.co.uk – Scandiborn’s site in the UK

Store with delivery in Spain

Jugar i jugar – I love this online store. The selection of toys is done with a lot of care and they deliver the next day if you order before 2 pm. Fantastic.

mumuchu – Is a fantastic online store. You can find their Way to play roads range by clicking on the link.

Store with delivery in Australia

Oskarswoodenark.com – A wonderful shop from down under filled with a fantastic selection of open-ended toys and lovely brands.

Way to play road idea designs to help you enjoy the King of the Road set

I honestly believe this is one of those toys that will be with us for a very long time. This was a gift for my son’s 3rd birthday, and we’ve been playing with it a lot over the past few months. (If you need other gift ideas you can have a look here). Probably my children’s children (if they decide to have children) will be able to play with them too 😅 .

Probably I’m the one having the most fun setting up roads by piecing the segments together and decorating them as small worlds 😅 🤣 but my children love to join and drive their cars anywhere we go. Of course, once my son has finished playing, he likes creating a bit of chaos before tidying up. It’s all part of the experience.

But I must say, that my children now play with it more because they’ve seen me play and create many roads for them. Now they are creating and having fun. We must invite them to play 😉.

I hope that putting this together will help other families get started and enjoy the King of the Road set. We had trouble making closed circuits, so I am guessing we are not the only ones out there with this problem. ☺️ I hope this will be useful.

Happy playing!

P.S. Oh! And if you liked this post, you might also like these other posts about the roads and others filled with creative play ideas 😉 I hope you’ll like them!