A number of my whitewater paddling friends really like their minivans. There are still at least a couple of models available but they have largely gone out of fashion.

Personally I have a mid-size SUV but if you regularly need to transport around a lot of people, minivans seem more practical in general than a lot of the big SUVs.

At that point that’s just a truck with a slightly different shape. I don’t see any anti-truck argument that doesn’t apply to mid sized and larger SUVs

The anti truck sentiment is directed largely at the ever-growing full size trucks. SUVs get less hate because the market for the absurdly huge SUVs is much smaller than the market for reasonably sized (by American standards) SUVs.

I don’t think smaller trucks get the same level of hate.

I absolutely use the capacity of my mid-size SUV quite often for a variety of purposes. Don't need anything bigger or the towing capacity of a full-size truck. And, given where I live, renting for a weekend would be very inconvenient. Sure, I could use a smaller hatchback/SUV day to day but I'm not going to own two vehicles at this point (though I used to own a two-seater as well) which some folks would probably also object to.

You pick a reasonable compromise and arguably a full-size truck is overkill for many but a Mazda Miata is probably too small for a lot of people even if it largely works for a lot of day to day stuff.

I own a small/mid-size SUV (and a van) so I’m not judging your car choice, but why would you not be able to rent a truck in Boston? Home Depot, Lowe’s, U-Haul, and more all rent trucks.

I don't live in Boston--about 60 to 90 minutes outside.

So, sure, I could pay for a delivery or rent something from Lowe's if I needed to for a specific purpose but I routinely use my mid-size SUV for weekend trips, transporting a canoe, picking up construction supplies, and the like. I need a vehicle in any case and it makes sense to own a somewhat larger one than I really need day to day to run to the grocery store, especially given that parking isn't an issue and my gas mileage really isn't bad.

If one actually lives in a city (which I don't), renting a vehicle can actually be something of a hassle on a weekend based on what I saw people go through when I was in a ski house after school.

If it’s a regular thing, yeah, renting becomes massively inconvenient because of the frequency. I misunderstood your comment to mean that even a 1-time rental would be extremely inconvenient somehow.

I don't need to transport 8 people around and I can always get mulch or gravel delivered. But, yeah, it's not uncommon for me to want to easily stuff a mid-size SUV's worth of stuff into my vehicle for a weekend or longer trip. I could probably do it with a somewhat smaller vehicle but why? The longer drives are probably when I need to do so anyway.

I did also have a smaller car as well when I did more shorter regular local drives but I really don't do those much any longer other than very local drives to the grocery store or nearby hiking trails.

With sliding doors and different seat configuration. But, sure, just the same thing. But it's fine that you just don't like larger vehicles.

The roof?

Not sure how. The people I know with minivans have roof racks.

A minivan has a roof, which solves a lot of the issues with trucks

Where I live (Vancouver Island) there's been somewhat of a Renaissance of the minivan-as-adventure-vehicle.

Lots of imported Delicas but also a fair few of those Mercedes Sprinter 4x4s.

I wish my minivan was 2 inches higher and all wheel drive. I’m not sure how much I’d want to adventure in my front wheel drive low clearance van.

It’s a great vehicle for most practical cases, though it is not very fuel efficient.

A lot of standard SUVs don't have particularly great ground clearance relative to Jeep Wranglers and the like. Though that doesn't really matter unless you're going off-road in Death Valley and the like. The current Toyota Sienna (which has improved a lot) is better than my Honda Passport in terms on gas mileage.

Yeah. I don’t really need or want high ground clearance. But I would like enough that parking at a curb doesn’t risk dragging the front bumper. My van (Odyssey) is low enough that I’ve scraped on a few unexpectedly tall curbs and I would be pretty uncomfortable with anything resembling off-road. I wouldn’t drive my van anywhere I wouldn’t drive a Civic.

> The current Toyota Sienna … gas mileage.

Better mileage and optional all wheel drive were the only things I preferred about the Sienna. But while I don’t like the mileage the Odyssey gets, I also don’t actually drive far very often so it doesn’t matter much. I put less than 10k miles on my car every year.

I was actually surprised when I looked at what the current Siennas get. I have a friend with a, now, quite old Sienna who was really surprised at how high the mileage of my relatively new Honda Passport was. And the current hybrid Sienna is a fair bit better.