Citroen Holidays Review & Prices

Perhaps the way the Citroen Holidays is badged will catch on in the wider world. We might yet end up with the Skoda School Run or the Audi Business Meeting. In the meantime, the appropriately-badged Holidays is Citroen’s entry into the dealer-ready camper van market.

Previously, only three car makers had offered turn-key camper vans direct from their dealers — that’s Volkswagen with the three-strong California range, Ford with the Transit-based Nugget, and Mercedes with the V-Class-based Marco Polo. Now, Citroen is joining the fray meaning that you can buy a ready-to-go camper directly from a dealer, with no need to buy a van and then take it to be converted elsewhere.

The big benefit to that is that all of the interior fixtures and fittings are specifically designed for the car. Okay, so that means you won’t have as many options for custom-fittings to your own taste, but it also means that everything should work properly, and it all comes with a manufacturer’s warranty.

To turn the SpaceTourer MPV (itself based on the Citroen Relay panel van) into a Holidays camper, Citroen has enlisted the services of camper vans expert Bravia Mobil. Together, they’ve stripped out the SpaceTourer’s seats and installed a kitchen with a two-burner gas hob, a 16-litre fridge, and a retractable table.

There’s a pop-up roof which means you can stand up in the back when parked up, and that roof also contains a double-bed, which folds down for use at night. There’s also a ‘downstairs’ bed, as the two-seat rear bench folds flat and converts into a comfy double. Of course one of the restrictions of any similarly-sized camper van is that you can only carry as many people as it will sleep, so four — including the driver — is your limit.

Cleverly, Citroen has retained the SpaceTourer’s twin sliding side doors — one on each side — for the Holidays, and has designed the kitchen unit so that it be removed for cooking outdoors, which should cut down on any lingering sausage smells inside. There’s also a 10-litre fresh water tank and a 10-litre waste water tank, which should keep you self sufficient for a while, but it’s worth noting that the Ford Nugget offers a 33-litre water tank.

There’s also no on-board toilet, although in fairness none of the Holidays’ direct rivals offer that either — you’d have to upgrade to a considerably more expensive VW Grand California for that.

There’s a bracket on the side of the roof which can hold a foldaway awning, and for chilly camping nights there’s a Webasto central heating system, powered by a rechargeable 95-amp/hour leisure battery, so you won’t even need to hook up to the campsite’s electricity.

As standard, the Citroen Holidays comes with a 180hp 2.0-litre BlueHDI diesel engine, driving the front wheels through an eight-speed automatic gearbox. That makes it a long-legged and economical companion, but Volkswagen offers you the option of plug-in hybrid power for the Multivan-based California camper, while Ford offers the same option for the Transit Nugget.

Up in the driver’s cab, the Citroen gets a fairly small — and somewhat fiddly — 10.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and built-in navigation. There’s a ‘Top Rear Vision’ reversing camera too, which makes getting into tight spaces a bit easier, while the overall height of 1.99 metres means that the Holidays should fit under most height restrictors. For safety’s sake, there’s also adaptive cruise control and emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection.

Fancy this smart campervan for your getaway? Check out the latest Citroen Holidays deals on Carwow. You can also browse the latest new Citroen deals as well as other used Citroens from our network of trusted dealers. You can sell your current car through Carwow, too.

The Citroen Holidays is, in spite of being very well set up as a camper van, actually the most affordable camper in its segment. It’s around £8,000 cheaper than a VW California (the one based on the Multivan), and a whacking £20,000 cheaper (that’s not a typo) than a Ford Nugget. Oddly, the Mercedes Marco Polo is actually priced at around the same level as the Citroen, but you have to spend quite a bit more on options to bring it up to equipment parity.