I was stuck in a traffic jam the other day with a four-year-old. Forgetting that the child is not yet literate I launched into a trusty game of I-spy.

As we idled beside an impossibly long bus I declared “I spy with my little eye ... something beginning with B”. Silence. I tried again. “B ... a Baa sound.” Still nothing. “Lots of people travel in them,” I added helpfully. “Oh, I know,” cried a small voice, “Wheelchairs!” To be honest the game rather fizzled out after that.

I suspect that I am one of the last souls who still thinks that I-spy is a reasonable way to kill travel time. Travelling with kids these days has become a technological enterprise.

I have friends who have filled their cars with PlayStations, MP3 systems and DVD players, all designed to protect themselves against the nightmare scenario that one of their darlings might suffer a moment of boredom. The idea that they might look out of the window never occurs.

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Things were different when I was a kid. My brother, Nick, and I practically grew up in the back of my parents' car. We chatted, we played games, I read the whole of the Famous Five and my father pointed out landmarks as we drove. I recall Nick and I being given a packet of biscuits to share in the back of a very small Fiat in the African bush. We were told not to eat them all while my parents went into an office to do the paperwork with which Africa ever abounded. While we were sitting there an ostrich put its head through the window and took the entire packet. The feathered felon was long gone by the time my parents returned and I think I was about 30 before my parents believed me.

My father was foreign correspondent for Danish Television and was of the view that there was as good an education to be had on the road as any confining school might provide. We would often hit the trail for a big event such as an American presidential campaign. The end result was that we could map all 48 contiguous states and were incredibly skilful at spotting motels with swimming pools from the freeway, ordering room service and keeping ourselves occupied in a 5ft space.

When I had kids of my own I couldn't see why this approach should change. Confined in the car in France, for example, I told them about the Frenchman Joseph Pujol, who was born in 1857 and was probably the worst travel companion of all time. Pujol had a skill - he could release wind from his body at will. In French this is called to péter. Pujol was so brilliant at faire le pet that he became a professional entertainer known as Le Pétomane, concluding his act by windily presenting the French national anthem.

The kids liked these snippets of culture and I began writing little guidebooks for each major trip that we made. I wrote a bit about the history of where we were going, found a couple of funny but pertinent stories and thought of a few games that involved being at least mildly observant.

And I enjoyed it. In Spain we discovered that the phrases we most needed to know were no hay papel higiénico (there's no toilet paper) and la familia entera se ha perdido (the whole family is hopelessly lost). We had competitions to see who could find the most disgusting thing to eat or the worst souvenir or send the most hilarious postcard. It may not have been culturally reverential but it meant that everyone was paying attention to the place and to each other. The real benefit was that it made me appreciate the world through their eyes.

“Did you know that the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes or about 1,500 elephants?” I asked my son. He shook his head. “Did you know that if you took all the iron pieces and laid them end to end ...”

“I know, I know!” he interrupted. “Yes?” I said. “The tower would fall down!”

Sandi Toksvig's guides to France and Spain are published by Red Fox, £3.99

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