I have no trouble getting mine to take time off, but I do have trouble getting him to go somewhere we've never been before... we've planned so many holidays in the after party drunken 'let's look at the brochures' stage, that never got beyond that... even though I remember them perfectly well the following day. The other problem is, if he is off, getting him to go somewhere interesting for all of us. We are three very different people who have vastly differing ideas of fun! A typical conversation in our house is 'Can we go out?' 'Where do you want to go?' 'I dunno, where do you want to go?' 'I dunno, where do YOU want to go'... like the vultures in the cartoon 'Jungle Book'!

I had a brainwave this week. We went on a mystery tour - although this really only works in a place where you don't have miles of rolling prairie to cross before you hit a town. Make one of those fortune teller origami things, but put the cardinal compass points on the top instead of colours. Spell out the chosen point, the inside will reveal time increments of 15 mins. Spell out the time and the inside should reveal Left or Right. Spell out whichever and lift flap. Instructions under the flap could be 'find pub for lunch', 'turn west for 30 mins', 'visit the nearest attraction on the map'... whatever. So a typical trip could be drive as close to North as possible, take the first left turn after 60 mins and drive another 15 mins then visit the nearest attraction. We ended up driving through a forest and visiting a farm.

It can be done with dice - even numbers = left turn, odd numbers = right turn and you drive for however many miles are shown on the dice - so right for 3 miles, left for 6 miles, left for 2 miles sort of thing. Take a good map with you!

LTS