As every parent knows, it's the kids that have filthy minds, not us clean-living adults. Last week, I wrote about our weekend in York at the annual Viking Festival (vikingjorvik.com). But when my nine-year-old read the column she was furious; I'd forgotten to include her favourite bit - the Jorvik exhibition's reconstruction of a 9th-century cesspit, with a squatting, life-size moving model pulling a grimace. "I know what he's doing," squealed my daughter. This reconstruction didn't know the limits of decency; there was even a very foul smell.

Anything to do with excrement is bound to be a hit with children. And it always amazes me how many opportunities there are to indulge their primitive passion for poo. In the Negev desert, a Bedouin guide baked us unleavened bread over something that looked like an upside-down wok, using what he poetically called "shit of camel" as fuel (redseasports.co.uk). Any spare lumps he turned into a little toy dog, using bits of broken twig as its limbs. I just had to be careful that the babies didn't eat it.

There's not a continent that isn't choc-a-bloc with poo possibilities. In Namibia, Bruno Nebe leads week-long trips along the Skeleton Coast which "include a large amount of crap" (sunvil.co.uk). There's springbok, jackal, aardwolf and seal (in abundance). What amazed my daughter was the comparative size of the collected items compared to the animals from which they originated.

Giraffes deposited little round pebbles; a boring old cow was so much shorter, but her poo so much bigger.

We now have an international poo collection in our home, all nicely dried and devoid of any smell. Frequently bits of it travel to school to be admired by classmates.

But personally, I still prefer to show off my worldwide small china elephant collection. It's so much more adult.

· If you have any experiences you want to share of travelling with kids, email deabirkett@cs.com.