Holidays are an expensive business and even more so when there are kids involved. There’s the pain of booking the flights and getting up in the middle of the night just so you can stand in the middle of the airport waiting for security to scan that pram. Screaming kids on the flight, crap expensive food and a hotel that isn’t anywhere near the beach.
It is possible to holiday at home as there are parts of Ireland that I’ve seen over the last week that I would have never noticed had I not been driving one of the very few Campervans that are made by a car company.
The Volkswagen California takes the body of a Transporter and kits it out with beds, fridge and a two ring burner that makes it a small house on wheels. It’s this ability to transform from a four-seat van into a home on wheels that you’d be buying into, there’s also the lifestyle of the camper-type but we’ll get into that in a minute.
The California that I’m driving has over 200hp and it’s connected to the DSG gearbox which has seven gears and gets to 100kph faster than a lot of cars on the road today. It’s this kind of power that Volkswagen has become known for, that and the high-speed comfort that the German brand brings to all their cars.
This van is over two tonne with no luggage on board and is as happy at 20kph as it is at 120kph.
The real winner here is the ability to drive into the smallest village and park anywhere. It’ll even get into underground car parks where other campers would struggle through Mountrath on pension day.
When you get to a campsite you can opt for the hard stands for parking and you can hook up to the electricity along with being able to fill the water tank. This means you can be self-sufficient when you install the gas bottle for the two ring cooker.
The roof pops up and this allows passengers to stand up straight in the back or you can jump to the upper deck for a double bed. There’s an enormous amount of options for parking and living in the van.
There’s also a lot of compromises, space being the primary one. Because of the small footprint of the van, there’s a lot of jigging around to turn it into the sleeping state and some of this jigging you will have to do outside because there’s no toilet in the van and part of the boot space is actually the second bed in the van.
Even with the compromises, the Volkswagen California took me and my family on an adventure that nothing else from a dealer could provide.
That ability to cover a huge amount of ground, pull into a campsite and head to the beach all in the same day is no easy task but the California, because of its size and power, managed it all.
Make no mistake this is no cheap van with prices starting near 60 grand and for the one I’m driving it’s more like €80k. If you like the camper life you’ll save loads on the price of hotels, flights and eating out because it’ll all happen in the van.
You can find out a lot more about the California in Michael Moore car sales.
SEE ALSO – Bob Flavin: The Volkswagen R – the fastest way to get you out of Laois
