Camping with the Golf

Camping is enduringly popular. And it’s true of camping with a Golf, too. The Wolfsburg compact offers smart assistants as options to make travelling with a caravan or a tent even easier.

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Simply heading off somewhere. Stopping when and where you fancy. And moving on again as the mood takes you: camping is holidaying for free spirits. And it’s popular these days. According to the latest findings from the statistics portal Statista, 11.36 million Germans fancy setting off on holiday with a tent or a caravan, six per cent up on the previous year. The Golf, with its four-wheel drive, is a winner with caravaning enthusiasts, thanks to qualities such as handling and traction. The latest generation of smart, optional driver assist systems helps you head off on a camping trip with even fewer worries.

With caravan: back up, super easy!

After all, however attractive travelling with your caravan hooked up may be: driving with a trailer can be a challenge, even for experienced drivers. Manoeuvring in reverse, particularly, can quickly prove stressful, for instance when parking the caravan at the campsite. This is where the optional Trailer Assist can help, making parking with a trailer much easier and much quicker.

One press of the button, and it handles the steering (within the system limits), while the driver moves or stops the car and trailer using the accelerator and brake. Similar to a joystick, the trailer’s direction of travel can be set and adjusted using the mirror adjustment switch on the driver’s door. The driver can see the current and target steering angle at all times in the instrument cluster. At the heart of this system is its camera technology: it monitors the trailer’s angle of articulation and evaluates this to calculate the optimum steering angle, enabling Trailer Assist to handle automatic lateral control of the trailer.

Feeling good while on the move

Smart assistants not only make manoeuvring easier – they can also make driving safer. For instances, assistance while on the move is offered via the optional Front Assist traffic monitoring system with city emergency brake function and pedestrian recognition. It can help to shorten braking distances and avoid vehicle collisions or mitigate their severity.

To do so, it monitors the distance to the cars in front and is able to recognise, within the system limits, if there is an obstacle in the way. If this is the case, it warns the driver of an imminent collision and also assists with braking, if necessary: if the driver does not react, Front Assist triggers automatic partial braking to reduce the accident impact. If the driver applies the brake too tentatively, the system boosts the braking pressure. Even at lower speeds in city environments, Front Assist remains alert: the city emergency brake function scans the surroundings and brakes automatically in situations where the gap becomes critical. Thanks to pedestrian recognition, the system can even identify people on foot.

You can also enjoy the option of wholly relaxed travel with Active Cruise Control. Smart cruise control not only maintains a given speed, but also adjusts it depending on the traffic ahead. On long trips with a trailer, in particular, that is invaluable assistance.

Discovering the most attractive stopovers

Those who prefer to leave the trailer at home and want to enjoy the limitless freedom by taking a tent along have an excellent travel companion in the Golf. Just fit a roof tent on top, and enjoy nature at first hand. The best places to stop are flagged up by the optional Discover Pro infotainment system.

Thanks to its navigation system, which can be updated for five years free of charge, you can make for the next campsite with no worries. DAB+ radio and Bluetooth streaming set the mood, and the hands-free unit for the connected Smartphone ensures that you keep your hands on the wheel even during calls. Should you want to, you can be permanently online while travelling.

For example use car-net services such as fuel station searches or weather reports. And enjoy being on the move wholly in the camping spirit – not just to get somewhere.