California Dreamin'

[nova30]

Owning a California is something that I have wanted to do for many years. I just think it offers endless opportunities to have fun and creates memories that will last a lifetime. My wife, while not adverse to the concept of a Cali doesn’t quite share my passion so this summer we are thinking of hiring one for the week to see “how it goes”. Obviously I am really looking forward to this prospect and want to use the opportunity to sell the virtues of a Cali (It is after all a very practical and versatile family car that can save you a fortune on holidays – right?). I would therefore welcome thoughts and comment from seasoned Cali owners on how to best use the time. We will be staying in the UK, so I have put together an itinerary where we stay in different places every night. Is this too much (Thinking of setting up beds etc) ? A complicating factor in this is that we have two young children (3 and 1) both with car seats. I am keen to get a view of just how practical the Cali is with young children. For example do the back seats have Isofix? Where would your store their car seats while sleeping etc? Where would you put them to sleep? We are regular campers so are used to the great outdoors and living in limited space, although nothing quite as “bijou” as a Cali (my wife’s words, not mine). I appreciate that what works for one person might not for another, but I am guessing that there are some simple rules that make the experience more enjoyable. My aim (hope) at the end of the week is to get my wife to say that the tent is going on ebay and to ask where the nearest VW van centre is

So in summary:

1) Is a Cali + 2 very young children a good idea?
2) How much hassle is it converting the beds etc – Should we limit the locations?
3) What is the one tip you would give a complete but enthusiastic novice to make a week in a Cali as enjoyable as possible?

Help and guidance needed.

Cheers,

Mat


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[Archie]

1. Yes! Our girls are 11 and 8, and I wish we had had the money to do it when they were very young. All kids love camping and if you've managed in a tent the van will feel like a hotel

2. I would definitely limit the locations for a first trip. Look at maybe doing 2 or 3 different sites for a couple of nights each. Otherwise it may seem like you are doing nothing but packing up, travelling and setting up again. This can be done quite quickly once you have got a routine and a place for everything, but I wouldn't suggest it for your first trip. The beds are quite quick to set up, its all the detritus that lives in the boot / cupboards that has to be packed and unpacked and moved around, plus the time it takes to cook, wash up, and clean yourselves and the mucky ones that will make the mornings and evenings disappear. (Do the beds before you have a drink!)
Try and get a drive away tent or sides for the awning with your rental (or take a small tent) as this helps for storage if you go off for the day. Failing this your car seats could sit quite happily on the front seats when the beds are made. I couldn't comment on the best place for the small ones to sleep as ours are bigger. We did have them upstairs last year, but they are going out in a small tent with the dog whenever possible this year, which allows us to sleep upstairs and keep down stairs as seating.

3 Don't try and do too much, and preferably find some sites where you can go off on foot without the van now and again to save having to pack up every day.

Enjoy it

 

[holliers]

Hi

Not sure I fit your "Seasoned Cali Owners" criteria having only owned one for a week ( ).

We do however have two girls aged 10 and 1, so I can say that there is ISOFIX in the California (we have '13 model), but it is a little difficult (not impossible) to plug in, and you obviously need to de-rig it each night. We stored the ISOFIX base in the drivers footwell and the seat on the drivers seat at night. We only turned the passenger seat around because we only required seating for three (the littlest one shared the bench seat).

We hired a VW classic T2 a few times before deciding on a modern VW, however, the experience certainly helped us, so I'd recommend hiring. It gives you a good feel for how you need to pack modestly, and how you move things around the van as you swap from day mode to night mode.

I'd agree with Archie, limit the amount of stops or you may spend all the time rigging/derigging/driving.

To your questions,
(1) Good for kids: you have to manage your space, and if the weather isn't great, it's "one to bed, all to bed", but kids love the camping, the fun of the van, and one the reasons we bought ours was to spend more time together as a family away from computers/tv's/etc.
(2) Bed conversion: I actually enjoy the bed conversion routine. I found the best way to do it is to send the family off to do the washing / play, then one person can sort everything out. It is part of the fun for me, and the kids love the transformation. But, yes, limit locations. My experience, the driving is the boring bit for kids.
(3) One piece of advice. Well, as an ISOFIX user, if your seats have bars that touch the floor to stop the seat rocking forwards (as we have) remember that this will block the drawer under the bench from opening. Don't pack stuff you'll need whilst the seats are in situ in those drawers.

Sorry for the longish answer - sounds like you are in a similar place to where we were and we are really excited about our future with the van. Hope you can convince Mrs Nova to take the plunge!

Have fun,

PS: love the man-maths that equates a £40k+ van as something that will save you a fortune on holidays

 

[Phild]

We have two kids 4 and 6 and a Cali. We don't bother with isofix as the connections are buried deep in the seat and we now have seat covers too. We take the high back boosters out and put one in each front footwell when we park up and spin the two front seats, this works well. The kids enjoy sleeping up top and they seem safe enough up there with the net up. My son seems to manage to creep out of bed and climb down without waking us up. It scares the living day lights out of you when you just catch a glimpse of a shadow at the end of the bed!

We were also regular campers before we made the switch, we did it to lengthen the season, and it has worked well so far. I think it helps that we where relatively lightweight campers with a 4 berth tent as the Cali could be quite claustrophobic for some families.

We hired a VW conversion for a weekend and a larger Ducato van conversion for a week, before we decided to go for the Cali, it was so much more usable and better designed than the other options, and the relatively low depreciation makes it good value. That is better man maths!

Have fun!




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[nova30]

All,

Thanks for all your responses and useful tips. It is re-assuring to know that I am not completely mad in taking two very young children and one apprehensive wife on a tour of the UK. I have however, clearly let my excitement and exuberance run away with me though so I need so revise my ‘tour’ to have fewer stops.

As I suspected I need to refine my “save a fortune on holiday” argument a little more… But when you offset the cost of a decent family car against a Cali the number is much more manageable to justify J. Add into that a high residuals on a Cali compared to most other cars and the fact that you have holiday accommodation sorted for years – It’s a no brainer (To me at least). I just need to define the mathematical formula to support my argument.

I suspect (as with most things in the UK) the experience will dictated by the weather. A week of rain will inevitably lead to a sense of claustrophobia so let’s just hope for a repeat of the weather from July last year…

Selling the dream to the wife will be a heck of a lot easier sitting out on a warm and balmy evening over a glass of wine (Although I think I will leave out my mathematical formula at this point), than cooped up inside in the pouring rain whispering as not to wake the kids (In some ways that could be fun? – in adversity and all that!!).

Thanks again for all your responses – I will let you know how our ‘adventure’ unfolds

Cheers,

Mat


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[cleve]

We collect our cali beach tomorrow but we've been campervanning with kids for the past 6 years. We did 3 weeks in France in our Caravelle with our then 5, 3 and 4 month old. We had a great 3 weeks but felt we spent very little.

It's not just about the holidays as you save a lot of money on day trips as the kids can always have a drink & snack in the van whenever they demand! We spend a lot of time waiting for swimming/tennis lessons to start & they are quite happy playing on the floor with their toys, doing homework, home from home.

You do have to be organised but we try to pick campsites that are walking or cycling distance to a few places to save keep packing up everything just to pop to the shop! We use a Quechua pop up beach tent to put car seats in on site or in the front footwell for stopovers.

Expect to play musical beds for a few nights to see which sleeping arrangements work for you all. I'm sure the kids will love it but hiring before making that commitment is a great plan.

 

[NZCol]

We have a 14 month old and spent 4 weeks in the van last August when she was 6 months old. We tried a few sleeping combos and eventually landed on the portacot in the roof space at night - she was quite happy, it was easy to get her in and out and it meant we could close the hatch and have a few wines !
She also slept on the back parcel shelf a few times as she seemed to like that. Now that she is bigger she sleeps upstairs with the net (and some addtional netting on it as she is Evil Kinevil) setup to stop her getting out. She loves it.
As said before we stick her car seat in the drivers footwell and can still spin the seat round. Mats on the floor means it is perfect play space and we have awning sides as that gives you a ton more room for 5 minutes of setup time.
We never found the ISOFIX that hard and just modified the seat covers to make it work.

 

[MrsShambly]

Hi there,

We have a 5 yr old. He sleeps up top with the safety net in place. We sleep downstairs, which can be a bit of a squash n a squeeze, but quite comfy with a topper. Downstairs bed gets made up at his bedtime, which makes things easier later on.

As a rule of thumb, if we're away for less than a week, we use a pop up tent to store stuff in - his car seat gets chucked in, along with various bits n pieces (scooter, toys, fold up chair, swing ball, cobb, etc, etc,….). If we're away for longer (and staying in one place), we'll use a drive-away awning. Both keep your pitch when you head out for the day