Michael Rosen

My parents were keen on tramping about the countryside, saying, "Look at that!" The "that" could have been an old church, a badger's den, a sheep's skull, a standing stone or an old tobacco tin. While we walked along my father sang songs, especially, "Jog on, jog on, the footpath way" (Shakespeare), "My father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light/And he slept with a mermaid one fine night" (Burl Ives), and "I'm the man, the very fat man, that waters the workers' beer" (a lefty song from the 30s) and "Susanna's a funicle man" (a silly song from the 30s). I do the same with my children. I walk along with them, singing, spotting things and saying, "Look at that!" One holiday I told my kids the stories of Macbeth and Beowulf. The deal with my younger ones is that they think of three things – say a leaf, a DVD and a cow – and I have to make up a story about them.

Tim Moore

A family holiday always begins, as it has done since my childhood, with me shouting "Bye, Auntie!" through the letterbox of our empty home, to confound any joint-casing burglars nearby. One great holiday constant is that foreigners take an awfully long time to eat, and a bored child in a restaurant is a grissini-jousting accident waiting to happen. The answer is charades – played under Avignon rules, with "family sayings" and "famous idiots" as additional categories. Somewhere in Umbria, they're still talking about my mother's interpretation of Blazing Saddles.

Jenny Eclair

On holiday we were encouraged to read and play imaginary games. My sister read Swallows and Amazons, and from then on we had to pretend to be characters from the book. My character was called Titty, which I thought was a bit rude. I used to get very excited when my dad pretended to be mad and chased us through the woods trying to hit us with a branch he'd ripped off a tree.

When I think of holidays with my daughter, who is an only child, I just remember how her face would look really hungry as she watched other children with siblings on the beach. My job was to push her into large "gangs" of kids whom she could hook up with for the rest of the holiday while mummy and daddy read books. She is now quite fearless socially.

Zoe Williams

My first trip with a baby was to Ramsgate for a week, on my own, while his papa was away for work. My plan was to leave at 11am, and get there around lunchtime.

Ha! At 11am I was still making the list, when my square friend called. "When you've finished the list, laminate it," she said. "What a square thing to say!" I thought. "I don't laminate lists." It was 4pm by the time we left the house. We got to the sea at 8pm, having accidentally left the dog tied up outside Medway services. The moment after I thought "that dog's quiet" is up there with the five worst "oh my god" moments of my life. But he was fine.

Skip to my second trip, a fortnight later, this time with the dad, plus my incredibly cool friends, in Cornwall. When we got there, there was a laminated square poking out of my cool friend's bag. "What's that?" I said, casually. "It's my laminated list," she replied. This is the only useful lesson I can give you about travelling with a baby: it is neither cool nor uncool to laminate your list. It is simply life.

Esther Freud

As a child, if I ever told my mother I was bored she always suggested two things: tidy your room or go for a walk. As a result of this I've retained a passion for going for walks, which I inflict on my own children whenever we're on holiday. Sometimes I bribe them with treats, or set them tasks: find a stick in the shape of an animal, six different coloured stones, something really disgusting.

On car journeys we play "I'm thinking of a person", which often ends in hysteria, especially with a child prepared to resort to changing people's names in order to stay in. The more you play, the more psychic you become. One game went like this: "I'm thinking of a person." "The Queen." "You're right!"

But if there's any chance of it, I always suggest going for a walk. "Are we having Lots of Fresh Air?" my three-year-old asked me once as we toiled across a windswept common. I had to admit we were.