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.

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

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.

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.