A motorhome under 7m (seven metres) combines the practicalities of a relatively short base vehicle with a bit more space than you’d find in a smaller option. This is because designers of the best motorhome under 7 metres will have a bit more room to work with, allowing extra features to be included as a result.
When you think of it like that, it’s easy to see how seven metres is almost the sweet spot for ‘vans. While a motorhome under 6m would be easier to park up, a motorhome under seven metres isn’t so long that you’ll have too many difficulties parking either, and it should also mean you avoid having to pay a large premium on ferries
To help you find the best motorhome for you, the judges at the Practical Motorhome Awards 2025 have shared their top picks on the market. In this category, we choose the Elnagh Baron 560 as the best motorhome under seven metres – we think it has an impressive washroom and plenty of quality throughout, all the more notable as 2025 is the first time the Italian brand has been in the UK since 2008.
In our guide, you can see what we made of it, as well as the ‘vans that were highly commended. We’ve also shared our other top picks from recent years, to help you find a motorhome under 7m that will suit your price point, with names such as Pilote, Elddis and Benimar all featuring, manufacturers that all feature in our round-up of the best motorhome brands.
The best motorhomes under 7m:
Shortlisted at the Practical Motorhome Awards 2025
Elnagh Baron 560
Etrusco V6.8SCF
Adria Compact Max SP
Our top picks from recent years:
Rapido 606F
Pilote Atlas A656D
Elddis Autoquest 115
Benimar Tessoro 483
Dethleffs Just Go T6905
Carthago c-compactline I 143 LE
The best motorhome under 7m
Elnagh Baron 560
- Base vehicle: Peugeot Boxer
- Price: £67,995
- Berths: 4
- Belts: 4
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MIRO: 2910kg
- Payload: 590kg
- Length: 6.99m
- Width: 2.35m
Reason to buy:
- Great washroom.
Reason to avoid:
- Travel seats are fiddly.
The best motorhome under 7m at the Practical Motorhome Awards 2025
This season Italian brand Elnagh is making a return to the UK for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008. One of the many brands within the Trigano Group, it is being marketed as entry level, although you wouldn’t guess that from the quality of this longer than usual transverse bed model.
To start with, an automatic gearbox (previously something you would never see in a Peugeot Boxer) comes as standard. Then the upholstery with a piping detail and wall patterns that are repeated on the rear bed headboard are not the kind of things you see in a budget van. In particular, the washroom is impressive, with a large roof vent and a mirror. And for once they have made a virtue of having the wheel arch in there: you can use it to wash your feet. The travel seats are a bit basic, but for entry level this is impressive.
Full review: Elnagh Baron 560
Etrusco V6.8SCF
- Base vehicle: Ford Transit
- Price: £61,700
- Berths: 2
- Belts: 4
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MIRO: 2674kg
- Payload: 462kg
- Length: 6.83m
- Width: 2.14m
Reason to buy:
- Packs in a lot in 7m
Reason to avoid:
- Kitchen spec is limited
Highly commended at the Practical Motorhome Awards 2025
This new model from Etrusco is proof that you can manage a lot in to a motorhome under seven metres. You get a surprisingly large and comfy front lounge with face-to-face settees, a side kitchen with a fair amount of workspace, the usual washroom with a swinging partition to reveal a shower, and then at the back two 1.95-m long single beds that each have a spacious wardrobe underneath them. Further back along here you also get a garage with doors on both sides.
Those settees in the front lounge can each be turned into belted travel seats, so you could just about use this motorhome as a day-to-day vehicle too. And as the leg of the pedestal table is positioned off centre, it can be folded away to provide a proper gangway through to the front cab. No more struggling to get around anything.
Adria Compact Max SP
- Base vehicle: VW Crafter
- Price: TBC
- Berths: 2
- Belts: 4
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MIRO: 2950kg
- Payload: 650kg
- Length: 6.46m
- Width: 2.17m
Reason to buy:
- A nice new layout from a tried and tested compact designer
Reason to avoid:
- It’s a little pricey compared with other compact ranges.
Highly commended at the Practical Motorhome Awards 2025
Adria was one of the first major manufacturers to start producing “compact” motorhomes with its eponymous range based on a Fiat Ducato. So you could say this model is part of a second generation of such vans for the Slovenian manufacturer, because it is based on a VW Crafter.
That means you get a slightly longer vehicle (albeit also wider by 5cm), and as there is a transverse bed at the back here (a layout that currently isn’t available in the standard Compact range) that means you get more room for the washroom, side kitchen, and the comfy front dinette. The kitchen includes a gas oven, although to leave more space for storage the vehicle uses Truma’s diesel heating system.
Rapido 606F
- Year: 2024
- Berths: 4
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MiRO: TBC
- Payload: TBC
- Length: 6.69m
- Width: 2.35m
Reasons to buy:
- All that family-friendly space in a relatively short van.
Reasons to avoid:
- You’ve got to like drop-down beds
The French company’s new for the 2024 season end washroom layout proved so popular at the Rapido launch last summer that it was quite hard to manage to get a proper view of this ‘van at the time. It’s not hard to see why.
Within a length of just 6.69m (so possibly just still not too much trouble to park) you get a large airy front lounge with face-to-face seats, a side kitchen that should suit most of your needs en route, and an enormous rear washroom that gives you access to an equally capacious garage behind it. And you can sleep four people in here, thanks to the bed that drops down from above the bed you make up with the settees and table. Those settees can also be folded up to make two travel seats, so four people can travel in this vehicle too.
This layout, of course, is not unique to Rapido. But this is a great example of how it can be realised and it stood out to our judges enough to take the best motorhome under 7m title last year.
Pilote Atlas A656D
- Year: 2024
- Berths: 4
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MiRO: 3015kg
- Payload: 485kg
- Length: 6.60m
- Width: 2.20m
Reasons to buy:
- A vehicle that can handle even the poorest of tracks, but is still comfortable inside
Reasons to avoid:
- Its relatively high price really only makes it of interest to people who do want to go off-road.
Like the Rapido, the second model in Pilote’s Atlas range comes with a spacious rear washroom and a face-to-face lounge with a drop-down bed in the ceiling. We like the van’s chunky looks, in particular the decals designed to imitate the luton, and its very masculine interior.
Its slightly higher price, at least when compared to the similar size Rapido, is probably down to it being based on the new Ford Transit Trail, a chassis equipped with limited slip differential. This is not quite all-wheel drive, but it should make it easier for you to reach those slightly more out of the way off-road places you have always wanted to visit in a motorhome.
Full review: Pilote Atlas A656D
Elddis Autoquest 115
- Year: 2023
- Berths: 2
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MIRO: 2619kg
- Payload: 881kg
- Length: 6.6m
- Width: 2.2m
Reason to buy:
- Great, spacious bright lounge, useful end kitchen
Reason to avoid:
- No permanent fixed bed
You could say it is the difference between Continentals and Brits, but when Erwin Hymer UK redesigned its end kitchen two-berth to fit on a slightly longer chassis this season, what use did the designers make of the extra 45cm that gave them in our winner of the best motorhome under 7m at the Practical Motorhome Awards 2023? They didn’t, as some might expect, expand the corner washroom. The motorhome still has a shower that shares space with the washbasin area. Instead they have lengthened the parallel settees.
When you think about it, that makes perfect sense. It means you have more room to entertain your friends, and it’s great news for the taller ones amongst us if you prefer to keep the settees as single beds. But even if you make up the double, this arrangement means there are still two seats each side that remain as seats. As these seats are the right side for the kitchen, they make a perfect place for whichever one of you is the early riser to perch and have a cup of tea. But it could even mean that, if you want to, you can leave the bed made up all day and still have a place to sit.
Not expanding the shower also means this motorhome’s ample wardrobe remains intact, so you can bring along pretty much any clothes you want.
This year there’s a larger rooflight too, and you get the option of a solar panel on top.
Full review: Elddis Autoquest 115
Benimar Tessoro 483
- Year: 2023
- Berths: 4
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MiRO: 3049kg
- Payload: 451kg
- Length: 6.70m
- Width: 2.30m
Reason to buy:
- Great garage and wardrobe, high level of kit, spacious end washroom
Reason to avoid:
- No internal access to garage
This popular motorhome is also one that really impressed our judges in the best motorhome under 7m category at the Practical Motorhome Awards 2023.
It’s a ‘van which comes with a high level of kit, with highlights including a solar panel, and exterior BBQ and shower points.
A sunroof and eight LEDs create a well-lit interior, no matter the time of day. We really liked the big pedestal table – this can move in most directions, rising and falling at the flick of a switch.
The well-equipped kitchen is ideal for cooking too. You get a three-burner gas hob, a combined oven/grill and a 145-litre AES fridge-freezer, as well as a microwave and an extractor fan.
The spacious end washroom is also excellent, coming with a window and providing room to get dressed in.
The comfortable drop-down bed can be lowered to just above the travel seats, with access provided by a ladder. Another bed can be made by using two infill cushions.
Storage is good too, with a vast wardrobe going across the back of the ‘van, providing both shelves and a hanging rail. We also like the size of the rear garage too.
Full review: Benimar Tessoro 483
Dethleffs Just Go T6905
- Year: 2023
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MIRO: 2968kg
- Payload: 532kg
- Length: 6.99m
- Width: 2.33m
Reason to buy:
- Great shower, spacious kitchen
Reason to avoid:
- Not always a popular layout
Just making it under the the 7m borderline, the T6905 is part of Dethleff’s new, entry level and simple to understand Just Go range, based on a Ford Transit. This one features a French bed with a corner washroom. Such motorhome layouts have not always proved very popular in Britain, but this one might cause some people to think again. Not having the central area divided up by any partitions means you get a huge feeling of space in the front dinette and the L-shaped kitchen, and in this interior the bright upholstery and warm wood feels cheerful too.
And while unusually the shower in the corner washroom is in front of the loo, the designers have cleverly separated the two not with a curtain or concertina doors but with a partition that swings over to leave you with a completely clear showering space.
Carthago c compactline I 143 LE
- Year: 2023
- MTPLM: 3500kg
- MIRO: 2955kg
- Payload: 545kg
- Length: 6.95m
- Width: 2.12m
Reason to buy:
- Great washroom, build quality
Reason to avoid:
- The price
If you need a motorhome that is under a certain length, you don’t need to restrict yourself to budget models. This fixed single bed model is actually only the third shortest in German luxury motorhome manufacturer Carthago’s c-compactline range, but it still comes in (just) at under 7m. We like it because that little bit of extra space pays dividends. You get a significantly larger washroom with a separate shower cubicle and a wider kitchen, with more space in the aisle in between them to get dressed in the morning.
The c-compactline, as its name implies, is also designed to be narrower than usual – this model is just 2.12m wide, so it should be able to get down more windy country lanes. Last year the range was reengineered to take weight out of it so that all models have a MIRO of less than 3000kg, thus increasing your payload. This year the interiors have been given a complete redesign, with noble cherry woodwork and high gloss ivory on locker doors.
How we pick the best motorhome under 7m
When we’re looking at this category, we consider a range of factors, including the value for money the motorhome offers and the space it provides.
Ever since Practical Motorhome launched in 2001, we’ve been regularly putting the latest ‘vans to the test, many of which can be found in our motorhome reviews section. Every review we carry out is fair, and we make sure we highlight both the pros and cons of each ‘van. Our About Us page reveals more about our testing process.
Combining this with our Owner Satisfaction Survey, where our readers reveal how they got on when buying their ‘van, puts us in a strong place to begin to create a shortlist, which we then begin to whittle down, until we reach our final list.
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