So you have decided that you can’t take another summer of being restricted by airport baggage allowances; the cost of hiring a car is almost as much as the cost of the holiday and, anyway, a family road trip will be fun … Maybe, but it is definitely less fun if you are squished like sardines into an overpacked car, lost in bank holiday traffic and the tape machine has eaten your only means of entertainment. We look at what’s on the market to help make getting to your summer holiday as stress-free as possible. Here is the lowdown on travelling long distance en famille from extra luggage space to Sat Nav, bike racks to DVD players.

Bags
Can you really be taking that much stuff? When you finally get to the car-loading stage, only ultra-minimalist packers are not desperate for more space. The answer nowadays is to get one of those charming aerodynamic pods.

Most car manufacturers offer their own brand of roof box. Halfords sells one (£350) that takes up to 580 litres – the size of an estate car’s boot. The market leader is Thule (which also owns Karrite). A Karrite 220-litre box costs £85 or you can get one that holds up to a 450-litre capacity for £190. Thule has brought out the Atlantis (£225) for summer 2005, which is surprisingly easy to fit and offers a huge amount of room. It is more aerodynamic than most and there’s no whistling at speed on the motorway. It also has the advantage that it can be loaded from either side.

You can also buy half roof boxes so you can have a bike rack, kayak or skis on the other half of the roof. One word of warning: if you are travelling on a ferry, you must tell the operator that you have a roof box and it may affect the cost of your ticket.

Bikes
If you don’t have a roof box you have space for a roof rack to store bikes on the roof. Or you can attach your bikes to the rack at the back of your car, but for this you may require a tow bar. Halfords has a range of bike racks that consists mainly of 2 bike carriers. Thule and Pendle have the widest selection, which can be adapted to suit your vehicle. The Thule 973 Backpac is specially designed for estate cars – it transports 2 bikes as standard but with the use of adapters can carry up to 3 or 4 depending on your car. Bungy elastics are ideal to secure bikes on your rack. Remember that if you are using a cycle carrier that obscures your vehicle's existing lights and number plate, it is now a legal requirement to have a lighting board with number plate. These cost about £20.

Getting There
You’re all packed up ready to go – all you’ve got to do is get there. I am a map-reading disaster (not helped by the fact my husband came top in Orienteering at Sandhurst) so I can’t wait to get my hands on a Satellite Navigation System (aka Sat Nav). Just tell it (or usually her) where you want to go by pressing a few buttons (many are touch screen) and a female voice will guide you turn by turn to your destination.

Increasingly, Sat Nav is seen as a practical extra rather than a luxury and your own car manufacturer will happily install a system for you. Renault’s Espace has Traffic Messaging, which steers you round a traffic jam and Volvo’s will call emergency services if you’re involved in an accident.

Alternatively, there is now a wide selection of both in-car and hand held systems on the open market. Blaupunkt has just launched an affordable £350 system: the TravelPilot E1 Freestyler has an integrated CD and tuner, which fits into the standard car radio slot of most vehicles. You can listen to music CDs while navigating once the route has been calculated as the necessary information is stored in a ‘corridor’ around the route. The major roads of Europe are included on the navigation CD-ROM, together with full coverage of the UK’s road network. For handheld systems, Garmin Global Positioning Systems (GPS). www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk is a useful website

Keeping the Kids Happy (and you sane)
Anyone who has experienced the joys of holiday traffic will know that in-car entertainment is crucial. Family singalongs and pub cricket are all very well but with an in-car DVD player your kids will be happily entertained by their favourite DVD for hours on end. Fitted in-car DVD players can sit in the radio space so that they can run off the car’s hi-fi system, with a screen either in the back of the frontseat head rests or folding down from the ceiling.

Although DVD players are not yet standard fittings, your car manufacturer will install one for a fee: Chrysler’s system, complete with 7 inch overhead screen and infrared (ie cordless) headphones, will set you back about £2000, plus fitting.

Alternatively, you can buy a cheaper one at Dixons (prices range from Ingersol £60 up to Panasonic £260) or John Lewis (Goodmans £249; Roadstar £199; Sony £399) or the Roadstar Watch 'N' Go Portable looks good value at £249, www.roadstaruk.co.uk. Useful extras include twin headphone sockets with separate volume controls, multi-facility options so one child can plug in their Playstation instead of watching a film and infrared headphones. Beware of buying cheap fold-down portable units – they don't last well in cars as they aren’t built to absorb shock. Goodmans are designed specifically for cars so have built-in anti-shock protection.

Another plus for the free-standing DVD player is that you can remove it the other end and you don’t have to worry that the car is a potential magnet for thieves. Some systems will plug into a TV so you can watch a film in full size glory.

For an all singing, all dancing product, try the Alpine D310RB which combines car stereo, DVD and Sat Nav with a Pulse Touch screen into which you can attach your i-pod for full i-pod graphics. The kids have infrared headphones and a screen each. The touch screen allows the kids to choose a particular scene or they can run Playstations and games consoles. It also has a foldback screen and removable facia. This unit costs around £2,200.

Alternatively, the Pioneer AV1C-X1R is a Sat Nav with an integrated DVD player and a radio. So once you’ve told it where you want to go, the map disc can be replaced by a DVD so the kids in the back can watch a movie, the driver follows the directions while the front passenger listens to the radio. You can reprogramme mid journey to take in a bistro stop, within a 10 mile radius, and then bring you back to your original position. This multi tasker connects into the standard car radio space and the touch panel display folds into the dashboard to look like a radio unit, complete with removable faceplate, whenever the car is unattended. This costs from £1,500– £2,000 and the installation costs around £300.