Citroen Holidays (2025 - ) review

The Citroen Holidays is built into the company’s Dispatch medium van, giving you all the power and durability of the reliable 2.0-litre diesel engine designed for hard-working light commercial vehicles. You also get the Stellantis 10-inch touch-screen infotainment system, a 10-inch driver information screen behind the steering wheel, wireless smartphone charger, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, and Citroen Connect Nav with voice recognition. The van itself is relatively compact measuring 4.98 metres long, 2.01 metres high (when the pop-top roof is stowed), and 1.92 metres wide when the mirrors are folded – basically, it’ll fit in pitch locations and parking spaces with no hassle. Although you might not get into every height-restricted car park. Driver assistance and safety features include Adaptive Cruise Control with speed limiter, the Park Assist package (including a 180-degree colour reversing camera with front, rear, and side sensors), Blind Spot Monitor, Hill Start Assist, Lane Keep Assist, Automatic Emergency Braking, and Driver Attention Alert. The camper also has an electric parking brake, heated leather steering wheel, automatic lights and wipers, and sound insulation. About the only thing we can knock here is that the steering can be a little light at times and the offset pedals can make those longer journeys a big hard on your neck and back. But if you’re on your holiday in a campervan packed with equipment and luggage it’s very unlikely you’ll be driving in a mad dash and can make time to stretch your legs.

On the outside, the Holidays cut a nice and compact figure. The loan vehicle I had in sported a dark metallic green paint job which really showed off the camper’s curves. Body-coloured bumpers and handles, black side rubbing strips, dark-tinted rear windows, and 17-inch diamond-cut silver and black alloy wheels tie the look together well. Inside the cabin is a lot of durable plastic and tough fabric – very fitting for a camper with so much ‘van’ at its heart – which shows where your money ISN’T being spent. The decorative inlays on the dashboard and door panels, chrome air vent surrounds, light grey roof lining, black carpet front flooring, and TPO plastic rear flooring also shows how hard the camper veers hard into ‘durable’ rather than ‘homely’ territory. It’s one of those campervans that looks smart on the outside and functional-only on the inside.

It’s actually quite easy to live in this van, if you’re using it as a base camp. It features dual-zone automatic climate control in the cabin with an auxiliary heater in the rear, plus a rear ceiling-mounted air conditioning panel with temperature and fan controls. And it all works well to adjust the internal climate – really, what more can you ask from climate controls? The camper is also equipped with a 120 W roof-mounted solar panel, 230 V internal and external power sockets, multiple USB charging sockets, 12V sockets, and LED interior lighting with its own control panel. There’s even an outdoor shower with a 25-litre unheated water tank (chilly), a removable cassette toilet, and a pair of 10-litre water tanks under the sink unit for fresh and grey water. Storage is plentiful with a wardrobe, storage drawers, map pockets, upper illuminated glove box, lateral roof rails for mounting an awning, and vacuum window curtains for improved privacy. One note on the storage is that the doors close nicely, but do feel a bit flimsy. For two people there’s enough space for you AND your cargo, and enough equipment to satisfy you on paper. But for more than two and it can feel claustrophobic, and I stand by my comment that it’s better as a base camp to sleep in rather than something you’ll spend hours living in.

The Holidays features its own ‘kitchen block’, which is a fully removable kitchen module featuring a two-burner gas stove top and an integrated sink. It’s a nice touch to be able to remove it… but why would you want to just to get a bit more space? Your food is kept nice and cool by a very smart built-in 16-litre fridge hidden away under a wooden panel… one of my favourite features. For meals, you get a fiddly-folding, free-standing table (for use indoors or outside). When eating inside you make use of the driver and front passenger swivelling captain's chairs that turn to face the rear cabin and the bench seat. It’s all fine, but other campervans have much sturdier tables. I like that the two side doors slide open fully for ventilation, but am less impressed that the side doors windows don’t slide open – it’s perhaps the one corner cut I don’t fully understand.

Sleeping is something that comes naturally to me. The second I sit down in an airplane or in the back of a car, I pop in my ear buds and I’m off to the land of nod. I’m also a committed napper, so the act of sleeping is something I don’t worry about – I tell you this not as a boast, rather as an explanation of my testing method. Over the weekend I had the Holidays, I took a nap in each of its beds. On the ground floor is the second row of two seats that folds out into a bed measuring 1.15 m by 1.90 m. It’s not sprung and is a bit of a muddle to get sorted. My nap was uneventful, but I did need my good pillows to prevent neck ache. The star of the show is the van’s upper bed in the pop-top roof. This bed measures 1.20 m by 1.95 m (slightly larger than the ground floor bed) and is encased in a canvas enclosure with integrated ventilation windows and blinds. It is sprung on plastic springs with a thin mattress, but was a more comfortable sleeping location. The pop-top roof is easy to deploy, but frustrating to stow because the canvas messily folds in and often gets in the way of the locking catches. The roof bed is low enough not to need a ladder to get in and out of, which is a bonus. So, one good bed, one okay bed… that’s not bad at this price.

You’ll nab one of these for a few thousand pounds under £60K, which feels about right. You can add a few options to the specification including metallic paint (free), a Thatcham Volumetric Alarm System for £400, a towbar for £700, and a spare wheel for £150. My issue is that the Holidays sits alongside competitors with more to offer. For a few thousand pounds more you can get a better campervan with slightly more space and overall better level of fixtures and layout. If we’re purely talking price, I’d be pointing at third-part conversions and not off-the-shelf manufacturer conversions like this.

You’ll buy the Citroen Holidays because you want a (relatively) affordable campervan with the backing and warranty provided by a major manufacturer. While the Holidays offers a lot on paper, the overall package is not as well executed as other manufacturer-built conversions and outclassed by some third-party conversions that are definitely worth the slight increase in price.