Prospective owner with no experience … help!

Looking to get my first ever campervan or motor home off any sort in the near future. Having looked at lots of options… my gut feel is to go for a Cali.
I’m not sure my wife and I will cope with the small bed or lack of toilet, but if we want something we can use as a day to day vehicle, our options are limited, I think.
I’d considered a Sanna from Jerba … but those beds look very small.
Any advice on this is welcome.
Living in Worcester, U.K.

SilentRunning said:

Looking to get my first ever campervan or motor home off any sort in the near future. Having looked at lots of options… my gut feel is to go for a Cali.
I’m not sure my wife and I will cope with the small bed or lack of toilet, but if we want something we can use as a day to day vehicle, our options are limited, I think.
I’d considered a Sanna from Jerba … but those beds look very small.
Any advice on this is welcome.
Living in Worcester, U.K.

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If you want a big bed get a California Beach. With the right configuration the lower berth is a massive 150 by 200cm and the upper berth 120 by 200cm.

SilentRunning said:

Looking to get my first ever campervan or motor home off any sort in the near future. Having looked at lots of options… my gut feel is to go for a Cali.
I’m not sure my wife and I will cope with the small bed or lack of toilet, but if we want something we can use as a day to day vehicle, our options are limited, I think.
I’d considered a Sanna from Jerba … but those beds look very small.
Any advice on this is welcome.
Living in Worcester, U.K.

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I can confirm the beds in a Sanna are tiny, I’m a smidge over six foot and there’s no way I could sleep in one.

How long have you been married? The longer it is the more likely it is that one will want to sleep in the poptop and the other in the downstairs bed

Jimmylondon07 said:

I can confirm the beds in a Sanna are tiny, I’m a smidge over six foot and there’s no way I could sleep in one.

How long have you been married? The longer it is the more likely it is that one will want to sleep in the poptop and the other in the downstairs bed

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It’s the width rather than the length I’m thinking about. We’ve just gone for a king size bed at home and my wife (off many years) loves it. Me not so much
I’m glad you said about sleeping in the poptop s well as downstairs. This is the vital information I came here for

Slept upstairs and down - never thought it was too short, small or narrow. I'm 6ft and my partner 5' 9" - zero issues for us. Toilet - just use search here - 335 is the answer. Works a treat for 2am breaks, otherwise the site facilities are always a short walk away. If having a king size bed at home is an issue, no camper van is going to solve that problem.

My advice would be to hire a Cali for a week to be sure you’re doing the right thing. Around 5 to 6 nights away, maybe move between a couple of campsites. Hired vans tend to come with most of the essentials, so there’s no need to get kitted up. We did that, hired an Ocean from a VW dealer, and then we looked round loads of conversions, and some motorhomes, comparing the features with the Cali. We then ordered a Cali, and hired again while we waited! By the time ours arrived we’d got our heads round most things.

Hawthorn37 said:

My advice would be to hire a Cali for a week to be sure you’re doing the right thing. Around 5 to 6 nights away, maybe move between a couple of campsites. Hired vans tend to come with most of the essentials, so there’s no need to get kitted up. We did that, hired an Ocean from a VW dealer, and then we looked round loads of conversions, and some motorhomes, comparing the features with the Cali. We then ordered a Cali, and hired again while we waited! By the time ours arrived we’d got our heads round most things.

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Agreed. We did same with 5 days in Wales. You quickly get a feel. Sister also did same last year before they bought. They had a lot more bed challenges than us to be fair but she solved them all with a Duvalay.

My final advice is one up and one down. You’ll then have a small double each!

I agree that a trial hire is useful, however with that you can’t ‘choose’ the weather like you can up n go when it’s your own van. Even so, it does give you a feel for it.
We looked at Jerba conversions ( live in Scotland, so not too far ) and thought they were very good but the California stood out above the others for ‘factory finish’ and prices not too different.
We have a dog, a Labrador, so the decision is made for us, I am upstairs and husband downstairs with the dog.He is 6’1” and I’m 5’5” and the beds are roomy. It means a wee bit more organising of a night if you use the downstairs bed too…. I would prefer to just use pop top bed ( which we’ve tried and I thought was fine) and leave dog downstairs but my other half prefers the downstairs bed !
We have the Ocean and for us the choice came down to ‘we want a kitchen etc’, it’s for camping and even in poor weather it’s all there inside the van. I understand those who opt for the Beach say more room seats etc but that often tends to be based on number of kids, ie bums on seats.
Yes, no toilet on board but a Porta potti can suffice and we’ve had ours 4 years and it still hasn’t been used lol ….. it’s there if you need it !
I’ve been driving over 50 years and many moons ago, during Uni holidays worked for Avis, so driven all sorts cars and vans … it’s an easy drive, but for simplicity get the reversing camera.

Hawthorn37 said:

My advice would be to hire a Cali for a week to be sure you’re doing the right thing. Around 5 to 6 nights away, maybe move between a couple of campsites. Hired vans tend to come with most of the essentials, so there’s no need to get kitted up. We did that, hired an Ocean from a VW dealer, and then we looked round loads of conversions, and some motorhomes, comparing the features with the Cali. We then ordered a Cali, and hired again while we waited! By the time ours arrived we’d got our heads round most things.

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Also agreed. Hire one. It’s a massive purchase and, as I have said before, if your wife doesn’t like it you are on high road to nothing.

The chances are, hiring a Cali in the UK for a week you'll encounter sun, cloud, warm, cool and rain. That's sufficient to test out how you get on with the interior space when you're "confined to quarters". It'll give you a really good idea of what they're all about. No reason you couldn't do the same with a conversion too (if you like a specific converter, ring them and ask if they've supplied to any camper hire places then contact them to hire one of their vehicles).

As above, it's a big and long term purchase - not worth rushing. It's not like a car, a test drive for an hour isn't going to tell you much (and a Cali is essentially just a plush, slightly lardy van to drive) - you'll only get to know it by staying in one, and you'll need at least a few days to acclimatise (if you've never stayed in a campervan of any kind before, might take you towards the end of a week before you've got yourself acquainted with the nuances of living in a van).

We hired one first and concluded a Cali was not for us and neither was a big white. We decided what we wanted and found a VW approved converter to built our requirements. LWB high top with hot water - with shower (external), toilet, heater, solar panel, wider bed than Cali Ocean, full kitchen. Van came with full VW warranty and 3 year converter warranty. Did not save much or anything over a Cali but we have what we wanted. No regrets. It is each to their own, Cali's are excellent if that design meets your needs.

Thanks everyone for your advice. We are hiring a van in September so we’ll see how we get on.

SilentRunning said:

Thanks everyone for your advice. We are hiring a van in September so we’ll see how we get on.

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if you want a new one, Keep an eye on when the order book will close for a new Cali orders, the order book closed some time ago for transporter vans (you can’t order a new one).

Perfectos said:

if you want a new one, Keep an eye on when the order book will close for a new Cali orders, the order book closed some time ago for transporter vans (you can’t order a new one).

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I would be surprised if the order book is still open in September. If I were the OP I'd do one of two things;

1) Find an earlier hire (i.e. imminently!) so you can try and order promptly

2) A riskier strategy, but assuming second hand prices remain strong, you could place an order for one, hire in the 3 months or so it'll take to get built, if you like it you'll get your own vehicle fairly soon afterwards, if you don't, you could sell it once you get it (or lose the £1k deposit). At the moment, you could probably sell it for equal or more than a discounted DTD price if you didn't put any miles on it, but no guarantee prices will stay strong if VW launch a worthy successor in the interim (that is a big "if").

Availability of options are thinning in the build configurator, so I would think we'll be seeing more significant things dropping off the availability by August, if not a total closure of the books. Linked to option 2) above though, you might find as the production run finishes, orders might fly through more quickly so be prepared if you go down that route.

Third option I suppose is hope the book is open and if it closes, go secondhand for purchase.

Since we got our Cali in 2008, we have always slept upstairs (until some recent medical issues). It's a very comfy soft bed, and just about wide and long enough. The only real problem is if one of you needs to get up and crawl down through the hatch to go to an outside loo. If you sleep with your heads at the tallest end of the roof, you have to crawl your legs round over your partner to get out! Funny how you get used to it though. Some sleep with their heads at the shallow end (rear of the van. I find this a bit claustrophobic though.

SilentRunning said:

It’s the width rather than the length I’m thinking about. We’ve just gone for a king size bed at home and my wife (off many years) loves it. Me not so much
I’m glad you said about sleeping in the poptop s well as downstairs. This is the vital information I came here for

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My wife and I were - like you - newbies to canpervans, but took the plunge during Covid (having been together for 30 years already). We are both very comfortable in the upper double bed of our new Cali. More comfortable than many hotel/B&B room! If you think you might struggle to get up there, a ladder is available and certainly helps, although actually we found we didn’t need it.

Downstairs bed isn't as restrictive as you might imagine, we also have a king at home. I personally wouldn't count on sleeping in the pop top. We've had to lower it due to high winds, on a number of occasions, its also easier to keep warm with the roof down. Also, sleeping in the roof means you are camping which has a different status in Europe to simply sleeping in your van.

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