Help! Eye Spy only got us as far as Calais last summer. Then the kids revolted all the way to Umbria. Can you give me some good in-car games? I refuse to let them watch DVDs all the way through Europe. Sarah Chandler, Nottingham

A Sunday Times travel expert responds: The real name of the name here is to see how long you can put off the almost inevitable, “Are we nearly there yet?” And with a bit of planning, you might just make it.

Using what’s around you is the key, so why not get the kids on the hunt for cars from different countries – let’s say that the first one that gets to 10 wins. Or use the numbers on the plates, by giving one child the task of looking for registrations ending in odd numbers, and the other, even. Set a time limit – 10 minutes should do it - then count up who has the highest score.

Or you could set them off looking for things beginning with ‘A’, on signs, buildings, and other cars around you. Players should take turns, the first player trying to spot something beginning with the letter ‘A’, the second the letter ‘B’, and so on, until you get to ‘Z’. Or start your child off by saying, "I'm going on a trip and I'm bringing…Asprin”, for example. The next player says the sentence, ending with something that they have bought with them that begins with ‘B’, and so on.

You might be reaching for the Asprin after a few singing games, but you could try a variation of ‘I’ll name that tune in one’. Someone hums a tune, and the others try to guess what it is. Or for fans of Radio 4’s ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue’, get players to sing a long to a well known track on a CD or the radio, and then turn the volume down for 30 seconds, and see how close to the rhythm they are when you turn the volume back up.

Of the guessing style games, try ‘Guess what I am’, where one person says that they are either a person, place or thing and the others then ask questions answerable with ‘yes or ‘no’, until the winner guesses correctly and gets to go next.

If you hit a traffic jam, the AA, suggests ‘Guess who’s next door’, where each person chooses someone in the car nearest to them, and then dreams up a persona for them; including a voice, a job, and maybe even where they’ve been. Make it a spy mission, and if they get caught looking by their chosen stranger, then they their turn is over.

There is a handy list of games that you can download from the AA, at http://www.theaa.com/arewenearlythereyet/index.html., which happily doesn’t include the bizarre ‘Cow Game’ that I came across. Divide the family into two teams, one for the left and one for the right hand side of the car. Then you keep a count of all the cows you pass throughout the day. Wait for it though - every time you pass a cemetery on your team’s side of the road, you lose all your points. Who knows, it might be worth a try.

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