First trip ever made in your California.

TripleBee · Jul 25, 2019

Back in 2009 i started looking for a California. I was tired of sleeping in my Quechua 2 and 3" tent.
As the months went by, looking for second hand Cali's, at rediculous asking prices, I made the ~~mistake~~ decision to buy a brand new one, for only a couple of € 1000 more than (ab)used vans.
The only problem was that it turned april, and I really wanted the California for my trip in may. So looking with the dealer for stock vans, I had the choice of a black one, or a blue one. As I don't like black cars, I chose the blue one on the picture. It had some options like metallic paint, electric retractable mirrors, 3 zone climatronic, ...
So I chose this one, as a new one would take some months to arrive.
With the papers only sorted 3 days before liftoff, I set off on the 21st of may 2010.
First stop was at the camping municipal in Étretat. There I learned a very important lesson: don't leave anything higher than 1 cm on the top bed when you close the roof.
Second stop was in Carolles, on camping La Guérinière. Stayed there for 3 nights untill it started to rain.
Third stop was on camping Le Nauzan Plage in Vaux-sur-Mer. Because of the rain that night, and a cool morning, I went further the next day.
Fourth stop was in Camping La Cité in Carcassonne. In the morning I visited the cité and went further.
Fifth stop was in camping municipal Le Castelsec in Pézenas. There the weather was good enough for 5 nights.
Returned back home in 2 days. First stop: camping municipal in La Charité-sur-Loire, taking the A75 to Clermont-Ferrand, last stop: home.

So after only 3 weeks, the van already had 3000 km, and had seen all over France, almost.

What was your first vacation? It may be a weekend too.

GrannyJen · Jul 25, 2019

I had come home from the dealers and parked my brand new van in the drive.

I started to read the handbook. Too tired, went to bed.

Following morning I woke up and then went and sat in the van to read the handbook.

I felt a strange itch.

A few hours later I was parked up in a field in Cornwall 250 miles away reading the handbook.

Ting Tong · Jul 26, 2019

Lovely story thanks @TripleBee

We went to buy a cheaper more sensible car to replace our GLE amg before we lost too much money and ended up next door at VW commercial! 1 week later we’d driven our new ex demo Ocean Edition down to just north of Biarritz with a trailer full of boats and bikes and were sat by a lake.

Best decision we ever made and we’ve used it so much the house and garden are suffering.

Happy travels.

Moakesy · Jul 26, 2019

My missus sent me a text saying "what about one of these?", with a link to a conversion on eBay from around £5k. Didn't look nice, but had a mate who had a conversion, so called him and he was just about to sell it for circa £15k.

Went to have a look, nice, but you could see where his kids had enjoyed it, so back on eBay looking at Cali's.

Went to have a look at a T5.1, fell in love instantly and made an offer. A week later once the money was sorted, picked up the vehicle. Drove to Dunstable downs for the day, had lots of people stop and talk and got used to where things were.

The following weekend was the first overnighter. Went to Thetford as a complete novice, but loved the experience and never looked back.

Three years later and I only have one disappointment.....that work gets in the way of us enjoying it more.