How To Entertain The Family In The Car

The most obvious one is to purchase an in-car DVD player; there are many on the market nowadays to suit any budget with most able to be charged or hooked up to the car cigarette lighter. Do get some headphones so you don’t end up with the Frozen theme tune stuck in your head and with a bit of luck you won’t hear a peep from the back seat unless it’s a squeal of excitement or laughter.

Heard of geocaching? It’s like modern day treasure hunting so download the app to your phone and then hunt for treasure along your route. OK, not real treasure but people are encouraged to leave a little trinket when they’ve found some of the larger containers and logbooks that are at the ‘treasure’ site. Some are as simple as being hidden behind a tree, but you have to work out a simple clue to find it. If you need to break up a journey then this is genuinely good fun.

An easy way to stop boredom from setting in is to part with your pennies. Play I Spy and reward your children for getting the right answer. The Banana game, which is not spotting the monkey loving fruit on your car journey, (although that would be worthy of a fifty pound note!), but it’s to see how many yellow cars you can spot, or even get them to look out for road signs. Give them some pocket money for playing along and getting the right answers but just keep it to small change to keep the pennies flowing and the piggy bank filling up. 

Audio books from www.audible.co.uk are great for journeys so either buy the CD or download them to your phone/USB and play through the stereo. Podcasts are a good alternative as you’ll find them on any topics and they’re usually fascinating to listen to as you get to learn about new things from science being brought to life, going back in time with history lessons plus younglings can even get a dose of Sesame Street. 

We might be iPad and tablet obsessed nowadays but board games are still a hit - remember Snakes and Ladders? Get the magnetic versions so you don’t end up scrambling all over the car looking for the pieces, and handily they also come in nifty travel sizes too.

This backseat car organiser will keep children busy during long journeys. All your child's stationary and paper can be stored in multiple pockets. When it is time to leave the car, your child will be able to bring the organiser with them as it transforms into a shoulder bag. Leave the primary pocket zipped and the bag becomes a digital tablet holder with a transparent window.

Let their imagination run wild with an A4 sized whiteboard, or let them draw with the adults guessing what it is at different stages of the drawing. All you need is a whiteboard, pens and a cloth to clean it all off. Cheap as chips!

Now if you have a little wannabe driver then you can’t go wrong with a pretend steering wheel, especially one with an interactive sat nav. Let them learn their left from their right as they navigate their way to the shops. They might not test their new found driving skills for the entire journey but it will keep them entertained. It gives a new meaning to back seat driver...