itt: things that strongly remind you of holidays as a child

xp i was going to say - those nasty foam headphone cover pieces, but you never see them anymore.

tins of icing sugar-dusted travel sweets (h/t Grandpont Genie but we got the fruit ones, not barley sugar)
"anatomy of a ..." postcards
cheap limeade
7up, glass bottle, straw
my parents' 3 tapes, warped from sitting in the sun in the car: Swingle Singers, Reinhardt + Grappelli, some unknown boogie-woogie-ish piano instrumentals

really old Archie comics. the smell of the old ceramic electric kettle we had at the beach house. heck the smell of that house (musty, old, salty). the tree house at my cousins farm. all of the above is gone now :(

I'm beginning to think car sickness might have been related to 7 in an Austin Allegro with the heating on and 3 smokers.

definitely those weird sweets in tins with the dust on them. my dad's aviator ray bans. a sunroof. do cars even have sunroofs anymore? probably, but no car i've been in for many moons, and i guess i've never holidayed with a car since the old family trips.

those huge toblerones you get in duty-free. smell of suncream obviously, my mum always used p20 which stained everything. or the bizarrely named "piz buin". for irish holidays i'd say hitting potholes, rain, card games, freezing water, though i'm prob drifting into "things i think about when i remember holidays".

Squeaking funfair fittings

definitely those weird sweets in tins with the dust on them

yeah, 100%

for me more than anything it's the sound of the eagles' their greatest hits (1971–1975) which played endlessly in the car on holidays to spain to the point where the californian countryside and the catalonian countryside are forever linked in my mind

my dad only had like two tapes, the best of simon and garfunkel and the best of the beach boys.

we had Simon & Garfunkel, the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver, Roy Orbison and Dionne Warwick, think that's it

he had james last on vinyl, for dinner parties.

It's strange that my father, despite being Indian/Trinidadian and listening to phenomenal music around the house - only had three cassettes for holiday car journeys - James Galway, Don McLean and Julio Iglesias.

I am going on holiday with my mother for the first time in 20+ years in December and look forward to reviving simmering arguments about map reading skills.

my parents' cars were pre-tape deck until well into my high-school years :o

just the sound of the wind whapping through the open windows (no A/C) and the occasional country or oldies station. i remember it being very mysterious that my dad knew the words to things. how did he know? he never played that music at home.

the smell of wooden matches burning