Here's my Adventuremobile!

This is my new used minivan which will soon turn into a campervan! I had been going between a Toyota Sienna and a Honda Odyssey but finally settled on the Chrysler Pacifica.

I want to give a shout out to Sean, Marcelo (and Joe and Alex) at EchoPark Automotive in Laurel. Their company has an interesting model for selling used vehicles. Sean and Marcelo are experience guides (not salesmen) who are paid salaries (not commissions). I visited the dealership over two weeks ago, Sean patiently showed me three different minivans, provided a lot of information and together we compared the different features. We also talked about traveling, camping and fishing: there was no sales pitch. He and his colleagues were pretty good at client relationship management! I left with a positive impression, it also helped that their prices are very competitive. After looking at the three different minivans, I decided on a Chrsyler Pacifica because of the stow 'n go seats, and the Limited trim because of the panaromic sun/moon roof. Tuesday after the big snow storm, Alex informed me they have a couple of new Pacifica Limited vans in their Baltimore store and would be happy to get any that I like down to Laurel for a test drive. I selected this vehicle, Marcelo was my experience guide this time and we completed the purchase in less than 2 hours. Compare that with nearly 5 hours with the last vehicle we purchased early last year!

This is how the minivan looks with the 2nd and 3rd row seats stowed, which took less than 2 minutes. The 3rd row folds with the touch of a button, the 2nd row's two bucket seats are pushed in manually but it was really easy.

This is the sunroof over the 1st and 2nd rows, half of it opens out. I plan to put some mosquito netting under it when camping, so there is ventilation.

And here, in the back, is the moonroof over the 3rd row which cannot be opened. The front console and UConnect display have a lot of bells and whistles, it will take some time to figure out how they work.

The plan is convert this into a camper without making permanent modifications so that it can easily revert back into a minivan. The easiest and quickest way is to get a custom slide-in conversion kit. I ordered the Arches package from Riverleaf, delivery is expected in 2 weeks. Stay tuned. Now, I just need to get a name for the minivan.