When I was a very young child we had some family friends who had a classic VW bus. This was 1980, so not as “classic” as it stands today, but I vividly remember crawling into the back of the van to go to drive-in movies.

Then a couple years later when I had joined a local church, I would often ride along with the drivers who would go pick up parishioners on Sunday morning. This involved riding around in a big 15 person van, hopping out at various stops to open the side doors while the driver helped the elderly folks into the vehicle. Eventually these big vans were replaced with Ford Aerostars, one of the first minivans, but the pattern was set… vans were fundamental to my early life.

Fast forward to my teenage years and I got my first car, a 1974 Plymouth Duster (3 speed on the floor, 318 V8… ya it was awesome). At that point vans weren’t really in the mainstream and the station wagon was having its final resurgence before its ultimate demise. Plus, as a young adult my vehicle choices were driven mostly by what I could afford, not was I wanted. I did end up with a couple small station wagons during this time including a Pontiac J2000 and a Ford Escort, which were fun. My experience with compact station wagons is probably what drew me to the CUV genre later in life, as I can’t pass up a nice large back hatch.

Moving further down the timeline, and many cars later, I was married with two young kids and we wanted something more robust for a family. Enter the Ford Windstar, which became our family workhorse of a vehicle. Designed by Ford’s truck division the Windstar was a rock solid choice for long road trips and as a replacement for a small utility vehicle like a pickup truck. At one point I fit both a couch and loveseat into the back of that thing, much to the amazement of my friend who thought we’d be making two trips to move his furniture.

Eventually all things come to an end and the Windstar just got to be more than we wanted at the time (the 11 mpg didn’t help) and I moved over to a Saturn Vue, which was one of my favorite SUVs I’ve ever owned; a close second to the small crossover VW Tiguan (old style model) of which I’ve owned two. After my divorce and re-marriage I stuck with the small crossover footprint, as I liked having more space and sitting higher than a sedan.

By 2021 my new wife and I were getting into more and more adventures, and the whole hashtag-vanlife movement was all over social media. Something about all of this media re-kindled something inside me for the days of big, covered, utility-focused vehicles. Here in America the pickup truck is king. The Ford F-150 is the most popular vehicle of all time, not just truck, but of all vehicles. It’s crazy how many pickup trucks are on the road, many of them quite under-utilized given their robust nature.

Scan the rest of the world and it’s obvious that the van plays a much more prominent role in other countries with vans taking on many of the work duties that trucks are put into service for here. Many people in other countries feel the use of pickup trucks feels silly, as they’re nowhere near as big on the interior and (thanks to weird fuel emission standards which are a whole different story) are often very over-built for little benefit. To top it off, all your stuff just gets wet in the back unless you put on a topper, which makes it into something more akin to… a van. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve considered a pickup truck on multiple occasions, but in the end it never ended up meeting all the criteria I was looking for in a vehicle. Enough with the random pickup vs van ranting though…

With all this in mind we decided to delve back into the van world and picked up a 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan. I then proceeded to build out a small bed platform in the back and The Adventure Van was born. For the next few years this trusty van became my main vehicle for everything from going to trail races, commuting, and hauling big things. I’ve carried a large amount of dirt, stone, and wood in the back of that van as well as hauled massive amounts of race supplies to our events.

In addition to hauling, we also fell in love with sleeping inside a vehicle when camping. When I removed the bed platform, we could fit two mattresses on the floor of the vehicle for us to sleep on. We’ve done multiple trips boon docking in the back of the van, hitting places like Moab, Sedona, western North Dakota, Great Sand Dunes, Los Alamos, and more. We’d wake up in the morning and open up one side of the van and start cooking a small breakfast in the comfort of a covered vehicle.

I also love having a van for my “trailhead” vehicle. I could show up to runs and rides and have a place to change clothes, hang out with folks afterwards, and even take short naps before heading back home. It really excelled in this capacity and my van became a pretty solid fixture at all the local parking lots of running and biking trails. Many a summer night was spent under the tailgate with friends, enjoying a warm evening with a beverage and camaraderie.

Then in February 2025 tragedy struck in the form of hitting a deer in a snowstorm and the old van got totaled out by insurance. I knew it probably only had a few more long distance trips left in it, but it was still annoying to have to get it replaced sooner than I was ready. Everything about it was still in solid working order, and in retrospect I should have just accepted the salvage title and gotten it fixed.

However, in my haste I went out and bought a new Dodge Grand Caravan, 5 years newer, and chock full of fancy features I had little use for. I immediately started to question my purchase, but I knew that I didn’t have any other good ideas. I would LOVE to own a Jeep Wrangler, but it just doesn’t make sense as a camping vehicle the way that we utilize a van. And there’s no van-style versions of a Wrangler (or other off-road style vehicle) , at least not anything modern or heavily altered with after-market modifications, or that doesn’t cost more than a house.

So, I grabbed another Grand Caravan and tolerated it for most of the year. But no matter how much I drove it, it just didn’t click with me. Part of it was the cost, in my haste I overpaid. Going from no car payment, to a car payment on a vehicle you don’t love is a tough pill. Every time I paid that bill I cringed and complained.

This particular van also didn’t feel well put together like my 2014 Grand Caravan. After doing some research I came to understand that the 2019 models were some of the last models of the Grand Caravan, and from the sounds of posts on the internet, many of the people working the line were getting laid off. I feel like a lot of this is true because of my experience with this 2019 vehicle. It had weird offsets in the body panels, strange squeaks and rattles, and a gas cap cover that never quite fit. Everything just felt really haphazard, and given the price I was paying for it, I wanted to just be rid of it.

In late October, after one last road trip, I sold it. For the next few weeks we lived as a 1-car family while I went through a ton of angst about what to get next. Thankfully, we can handle being a 1-car family for a period of time, so I wasn’t in a huge rush, but we did have things coming up that I really didn’t want to work around. I went back to my deep dive into vehicle types, my desire for a truly off-road vehicle, the cool-factor, the utility factor, the comfort on long road trips… and many other factors. Despite a lot of other pro’s for other vehicle types, the van just kept coming back around as the best mix of everything I needed.

I did briefly entertain the idea of a much bigger cargo van and doing a more extensive build-out, but that would have limited my general commute-ability, as well as being a bit more uncomfortable on long road trips. That put me back in the world of the minivan, which in America is quickly shrinking.

There are only a handful of models left in production, and after reviewing all the specs the ones that still best met my desires were the Grand Caravan and the Chrysler Pacifica. One of the biggest factors in their favor was the stow-and-go seating. All the other models require removing the middle seats completely. Fun fact… the most recent model of the Toyota Sienna doesn’t allow you to remove the middle seats without some level of hackery.

I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go back to Grand Caravan land, especially given the bad experience I had with the 2019 one I had, and so I decided to check out the Pacifica. I went to a local dealership I’ve worked with before and took one for a test drive and immediately felt a small bit of interest. I wasn’t a fan of the weird dial shifter (just give me my tactile shifter stick even though I know it’s all electronic too). There were also a lot of electronics in the vehicle, but most of the critical items were still buttons on the main panel, so I could work with that.

I decided to sit on it a bit, but after a few days I decided I wanted to check it out again. I got my wife to check it out with me, and we ended up deciding to pull the trigger. It rode great, the back cargo area was familiar enough to the Caravan that my bed platform still fit 99% correctly, the body panels all lined up (ya, small thing to ask I know) and the price was right.

Now that I’ve owned it for a couple weeks I’ve come to enjoy it more and more, and I feel a connection to this van much more akin to my first Grand Caravan. I simply like driving it, and I enjoy making it my daily driver. I like hanging out in the back of it at trailheads getting ready, or recovering after a good workout. Is everything perfect on it? Not totally, it still needs a trailer hitch, and I wish it had the towing package for higher weight capacity. Though, as a bonus it does have a roof rack (camping awning hell ya!).

I’ve really come to realize over the past 5 years just how good a minivan is as being a versatile adventure vehicle. Long road trips are comfortable and when you get to your destination, you have the option of just bedding down at a campsite in the back of the vehicle, safe and warm.

Even Chrysler has noticed this adventure streak and is testing the waters on a new trim level of the Pacifica called the Grizzly Edition that would come with a full lift kit, all terrain tires, roof rack, etc; more like what you’d find on a Subaru Wilderness edition vehicle. I’m hoping that they make the Grizzly Edition a reality so that it can be an option in the future when this vehicle needs to be replaced. However, given how happy I am with this van, I’m hoping that will be a long, long time away.