I wish I’d been able to write a blog when I was a kid. It’s not so much about remembering the huge, apparently life-changing events that happened, like moving house or changing schools, or the day mum had her Nissan Micra ruthlessly nicked from outside the Town Hall. But more about remembering the ordinary ones. The ones that slip from your memory the moment they’ve happened. The tiny events, the seemingly inconsequential ones. Like your mum bringing you a carrot from the kitchen because she knows you might be peckish, and she’s making a roast, and you’ve just finished watching Grange Hill, and the house is full of warmth and fun and love. That’s why I’d love to have been able to write a blog. To remember the things that never seemed worth writing down, but now, twenty or twenty-five years later, seem so much more important than moving house or changing schools or finding your Micra at the bottom of a reservoir near a Toby Carvery in Leicestershire.

And then, a little while ago, a box arrived at my house. It was from my parents. It contained, they said, ‘handy things’. I’ll be honest, when I opened it, the contents didn’t exactly scream ‘handy’. They screamed, ‘not really all that handy at all, when you think about it.’ But as I rifled through, I became fascinated. There were letters from my childhood, and school reports, and photos, and postcards, and even… diaries. Not diaries detailing my day-to-day life. But holiday diaries.

When you’re a kid, holidays are an almost unbelievably magical time. The world is fresh, and vast, and impossibly exciting. Nowadays, for me, at least, travel is in danger of losing something. It’s become hard work. It’s an endless succession of airports, and tickets, and trying to find your boarding card, and wondering how many tiny bottles of wine it’ll take to send you off to sleep, cramped and pressed up against the economy-class window by the fat lad next to you, who’s giggling at Superbad on his tiny, flickering screen and who nudges your elbow every time he coughs or splutters or burps. Which is far too often to be considered normal.

But now, flicking through the bruised and battered pages of my holiday diaries, I discovered just how great and thrilling and life-affirming travel was. Could be. Should be. Is.

Everything was an adventure!

‘Sunday December 31st, 1989 (New Year’s Eve!!!!)

We are off to Spain! We got a lift to the airport with Jimmy our neighbour! We arrived at the East Midlands Airport and were just about to check-in when we realised someone had forgotten their passport! Oh no!!! There’s always one!! It was Mum!!!! Silly Mum!!’

Even bad hotels were good in those days…

‘Monday January 1st, 1990 (New Year’s Day!!!!)

I was sick this morning! My bed collapses when you sit on it. It is cooool. We only have lukewarm water in the bath and the pool is more like a pond made of slimy green water. It has probably got loads of diseases in it. Urgh! Funny! The lift and the phone are out of order and the TV lounge is full of rot! On the plus side there are free peanuts in reception!! I spent the afternoon throwing rocks at a plank of wood! FUN!!!!’

And as I rifled through the box, I found more recollections of things that these days, I’d see no point in committing to the page. The day my friend Alex and I spent eating burnt pizzas in an old watermill somewhere in Scotland. The huge black dog that had taken an unholy shine to him and tried to mate with him, despite his most earnest and polite protestations. The horses we rode – mine called Hallowe’en, his by the embarrassing name of Sugarlump – which had inexplicably decided to launch into furious and unasked-for gallops, giving two nine-year-old boys vital lessons both in how to scream and how to cling onto something for dear life. All these things I’d forgotten. But all of them brought with them a raft of other long-discarded travel memories.

There’s something about travelling with your friends and family that really pinpoints why you love each other. Perhaps it’s that generally, you’re just having fun. Discovering new things together. Seeing things you never guessed you’d see. And bonding. Because when you travel with your pals, you travel as a unit.

I wish I’d written more diaries as a kid. I wish I could remember more things from more places and more times than I currently can. Although I am grateful to The Box for showing me that having a bed that collapses can be ‘cooool’, and that spending an entire afternoon throwing rocks at a plank is an appropriate use of my time.

Maybe I’ll finally get round to writing more travel blogs. I’ll be watching this website with interest.

Danny Wallace’s new book, Friends Like These - in which he delves deep into that very same box and finds it takes him on quite a global adventure - is published by Ebury on July 3rd.