- 2024 Kia Carnival acts as transporter, living room, and sanctuary on the road
- Covering 700 miles, averaging 26.2 mpg, the Carnival impresses, even before the 2025 hybrid arrives
- National Parks, dolphins, and an Army duffel bag bind a father and son before college starts
When my automotive friends heard that my son and I would be driving down U.S. Highway 1 on California’s Pacific Coast, their first question was what car we would be taking. Convertible? Coupe? Mustang? Porsche?
Minivan. The 2024 Kia Carnival, to be specific. The new 2025 Carnival Hybrid would not be ready in time for our trip, but the roomiest minivan on the market and its posh SX Prestige trim with second-row captain’s chairs with extending footrests made for the perfect roadtripper.
The plan was to fly from Chicago to friends in San Francisco, then drive south, bypass the Hwy 1 washout by Big Sur, then cut in from Highway 101 and camp a few nights, hotel a few nights, and eventually fly home from LAX. We would need flexibility.
The trip started with flight cancellations and other logistical challenges beyond our control. The boy didn’t seem to care.
“Do you even want to go?” I snapped.
A month before he’s to leave for college ten hours away in the Northeast, I needed to see signs of life, some excitement, anything other than the apathy or disengagement that only deepened during a summer overwrought with planning.
“This is my graduation gift, right?” He was calm, measured, and smirking. “As part of that gift, I don’t wanna plan anything.”
Setting the tone, they say. I know now the trip was as much for me as it was for him. To check in. To see if we’re OK. To reconnect.
A week in a minivan provided all the reconnecting he never asked for.
Setting out from San Francisco, we tucked the third row into the floor, moved the second row captain’s chairs as far back as possible, and wedged the cooler behind the center console so either of us could reach it from the front seats.
In the deep storage bucket under the center armrest, we kept the sunscreen, bug spray, extra phone accessories, trail mix, and Sour Patch Kids. The console didn’t optimize space and storage as well as other minivans, with their tiered shelves and side pockets. Still, it was sufficient enough to keep the essentials handy for our frequent stops. The first was Pinnacles National Park, where the inland temperature jumped 20 degrees and the heat was relieved only by caving through the bowels of the seemingly prehistoric park.
2024 Kia Carnival road trip
Back on the road, we cranked up the cooled front seats standard on the SX Prestige and headed south toward San Simeon for what would be the most highway miles covered in a day. The 280-hp 3.5-liter V-6 had plenty of power for passing on single-lane highways, but paddle shifters would be great to override the 8-speed automatic on demand for uphill passing, where the big lug lagged. It was quiet and smooth enough, though.
He was asleep within minutes, no different than when he was a baby. He didn’t adjust the 4-way power lumbar, didn’t even recline the passenger seat. Out of respect, he plugged in his outboard earbud and left the one nearest me open.
This became our default setup, he napping or in his phone one bud in, one out. He was present with me about 25% of the time, which I appreciated because that was greater than at home.
I played with the van instead, using the cabin camera in the 12.3-inch touchscreen to see how the contents been tossed about in back on some of the access roads. One thing I couldn’t overcome that Kia has since addressed is the console clutter. I could charge my phone in the wireless charger, but his phone and his 9-foot cord snaked over the console and slopped over the side reminded me of all the shoes scattered by the rear entryway at home, a parenting irritation I’ve never diffused. I suppose it’s the joke he and his sister will use later: line up the damn shoes, close the damn door, have you drank enough water today?
The 2025 Carnival now has wireless smartphone connectivity so there should be less visual clutter. We defaulted to his phone and his playlists, and I was delighted to learn that he recently discovered Radiohead. He turned me on to Rainbow Kitten Surprise, I reintroduced him to Wilco and requested more Grateful Dead.
After setting up camp on the bluff at Washburn Campground in Hearst San Simeon State Park, we took a frisbee, some beverages, and a good time down to the beach for his first sunset on the Pacific. This was the only thing he articulated when the planning began months ago: “I guess I want to see the sun set on the Pacific.”
The trip was not just a graduation gift, but a pandemic promise made to him and his sister for graduating with honors. Anywhere within the contiguous United States, your pick. He graduated with highest honors. I justify this humblebrag because of how fraught the pandemic years were. For all of us. For his cohort, having 8th grade graduation canceled and all those associated rites of passage—the school trip to Washington DC, the post-dance boat ride on Lake Michigan, the parties, remote learning freshman year, sophomore year in masks and desks barricaded in plexiglass—added up to significant but unknown consequences.
We had no idea if the kids would be alright. Still don’t, I suppose. Parenting is never really knowing.
Once in a while
you get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right.
—”Scarlet Begonias,” The Grateful Dead
2024 Kia Carnival road trip
At 3 a.m., the stars were a kaleidoscope.
The next day was ambitious—to the elephant seals and up to Hearst Castle before hitting the road again—and fraught. The laughs and deep conversations from the night before crashed on the shore of breaking down an ill-equipped camp and moving on. Charting a course of connection with an 18-year-old son is unmapped territory, except for the known danger zone of the Hangry Straights.
Everything.
In its right place.
—Radiohead
2024 Kia Carnival road trip
We were beat when we hit Morro Strand State Beach. We parked under a scrawny beach tree and agreed to chill before setting up camp. He was asleep in the passenger seat before I finished draining the cooler. I climbed in behind him and powered down.
The SX Prestige has a seven-seat layout with two captain’s chairs in the middle row. Unlike lesser models without power reclining and heating and cooling, this setup prevents you from removing the chairs entirely. I slid the seat to its farthest rear position, which would normally butt against the third row. Powered back, legrest kicked up, and since the sun was running over the ocean, I opened the sunroof. The Carnival has two sunroofs, one for the front, one over the second row. It’s a nice touch, better than a panoramic setup as it divides the cabin into two zones with skylights.
2022 Kia Carnival
Even in that most stretched out position, I couldn’t extend my legs, but tucking them to the side leaving was fine. I suppose I could’ve switched to the other side and moved the driver’s seat forward, but the beach breeze blowing in from the open side door was pretty much perfect. There were snores and drool. It wouldn’t be the last time we napped in the Carnival.
Yes I’d give my life
to lay my head tonight
on a bed
of California stars
—”California Stars,” Billy Bragg and Wilco
2024 Kia Carnival road trip
2024 Kia Carnival road trip
2024 Kia Carnival road trip
He discovered a Lego minifigure shop and wanted to trek back to San Luis Obispo. Thanks to the suite of driver-assist technology that included parking sensors, backup lines, and a blind-spot camera that alerted me to an approaching cyclist I couldn’t see, parallel parking the second-largest minivan on the market was easy. At a coffeehouse, where he downed a milkshake and eyed the comic book store across the street, I was reminded that this man, my son, was still a boy.
As much as I tried and failed to act like a peer, let him do his own thing, weigh in on all decisions, he still deferred to me as the parent. I was, am, always will be. Duh. When I called him out for walking behind me in town on his phone instead of beside me like a norm, he reacted by walking far ahead of me on our hike to a waterfall in the forest of a county park.
By the time we made it to our first hotel, a dump on Pismo Beach with no air conditioning and windows that didn’t open, we had reached the halfway mark. He needed a break. His room had a door that he left barely ajar.
I walked the boardwalk and the pier through sunset, replayed what I said and shouldn’t have said, how I should and shouldn’t act. Dolphins intermingled with the surfers. Beer sat in the cooler. In the dark I futzed around in the van, repacking the camping stuff we no longer needed. Parenting in a microcosm: moving on before I ever fully grasped what was going on.
I stuffed my dad’s Army duffel bag from Vietnam with the tent, sleeping bags, mementos and other stuff we’d accumulated but wouldn’t need anymore. It was the first time I used it and it perfectly fit our gear without being a burden while flying, unlike my old framed backpack meant for hoofing it in the backcountry. Before we left, I asked my son if he could figure out how it shut, with the four rings and one clip. I needed YouTube. He needed 30 seconds.
I admired the durability and simplicity of it. It became the luggage equivalent of the Carnival: nothing flashy but so damn practical. Like my dad.
In January, he told me he was done considering options to treat his lung cancer. My brother made an about-face and worried he could die that night. I was in Toronto with my daughter; the earliest flight was the day after. I called my son and asked the impossible: Can you go to the ER to be with Grandpa Duff in my place? He did it without hesitation or protest.
This boy, my son, was a man.
He met me later, nocturnal creature that he’s become. We found a place with a dartboard, he opted for a root beer, we talked trash, and he beat me at Cricket, the second time he’s beat me in as many times as he’s played.
It’s been an eventful year, much more for him than me. In three weeks he’d be leaving all he ever knew to be surrounded by no one he knew in a place he’d never known. What I knew of what he was going through was like the surface of the ocean, simultaneously serene and stormy. There was so much more going on below his surface.
There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone
—”Ripple,” The Grateful Dead
Robert Duffer and son, Kia Carnival road trip
We left the Carnival behind for a ferry to hike Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park. At a key junction, he challenged me to hike to the peak, and extend our five-mile loop to 10 miles, doubling our time and he wouldn’t care less if the ferry left us behind overnight with no food, dwindling water, and no shelter. I was almost charmed enough to forsake the wisdom of age and revel in the adventure of youth. We wouldn’t, but his spirit was magnetizing. On the ride back, I nudged him awake as the captain slowed by a nursing pod of dolphins, more one-week olds than she’d ever seen, and the water danced like a celebration.
Thanks to Kia for loaning us the Carnival metavan.
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2024 Kia Carnival SX Prestige
Base price: $47,665, including $1,365 destination
Price as tested: $49,480
Drivetrain: 280-hp 3.5-liter V-6, 8-speed automatic transmission, front-wheel drive
EPA fuel economy: 19/26/22 mpg
Pros: Mobile den, quiet, comfy, roomy, my son growing up
Cons: Wired Apple CarPlay, not cheap, my son growing up