Hi! We live in Alaska but we are planning to buy a minivan down south(Arizona is our first stop). The plan is to buy a minivan that we can take on a road trip and then bring home to Alaska. We are looking for something that is AWD and will handle well in the snow (some clearance underneath would be nice). Our budget is $10K or less. Older is fine as long as the year doesn’t have any known issues. I came across Scotty’s YouTube channel just tonight and I instantly felt like I could trust him. He mentioned the Toyota Sienna being a good minivan. Can others on here confirm that? Is there a year that is better then another? Also has anyone camped in the back of one of these? We plan to road trip to Florida from Arizona and then up to WA to catch the ferry or ship it up on a barge. Thanks for you help!
Well there aren't too many vehicles in that segment. You didn't mention what your expectations were.
Are you planning to haul people? Cargo?
- The first that comes to mind is the Chevy Astro AWD. It was a 'smaller' van, but built like a truck with good clearance. Pretty ideal campers. A workhorse, but they are getting pretty ancient now.
- The Sienna is good, but has clearance like an street vehicle.
- The only other AWD vans I know of are full size. Express/Savana, Ford Transit, and Mercedes Sprinter. Excellent campers, but higher price tag.
Thank you MountainManJoe! There will be two adults. One 3 year old. And a german shepherd/husky mix that likes to curl up in a ball when traveling. I looked up some YouTube videos of singles, couples, and even a family of four camping in the back of a sienna. I think I have a pretty good idea of how to make it work. Take out the third row and one of the second row seats. Then build a light platform to sleep on that will also give us storage underneath. I noticed a neighbor down the street has one and if they can get around here with all this snow then we should be just fine. The other thing I am wondering is how well do they tow? If we had a tow package maybe we could tow a very small trailer behind for added space.
you will want a full size van
