This was supposed to be a story about a Nissan Frontier with 33-inch all-terrain tires, a 3.0-inch lift, and a bed-cap camper. For weeks I'd planned and hyped up my truck-loving kids for a long weekend adventuring around Northern Michigan in Nissan's "Ultimate Build" overlander, but on the day it was supposed to be delivered, I got a call that the truck was in the shop with undisclosed issues. You can't tell a 3- and 5-year-old that they're going to school instead of the campground you promised them, so I looked to my driveway to salvage the trip. Instead of the purpose-built adventure truck, we'd take the trip in MotorTrend's long-term 2025 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid. We hauled our nine-person tent and three bulky air mattresses out of the basement and loaded them into the back of the Santa Fe along with two large totes of food and camping sundries, an electric cooler, a camp stove, and three duffels. That was enough to fill the cargo hold from front to back and floor to ceiling. Camp chairs and sleeping bags were stuffed into the second-row footwell below my kids' dangling feet. Fortunately, we had planned to leave our 22-pound Brittany spaniel at home, because by the time we were done packing the SUV, there wasn't an obvious space for her. This was the first and only time in a year of living with the Santa Fe that it had ever felt too small. Eric Tingwall - MotorTrend Up until this point, I was convinced the Santa Fe's size was perfect. My wife and I don't subscribe to the standard American belief that a larger vehicle is a better vehicle. We own a Honda CR-V and BMW 328i wagon because we prefer smaller cars and SUVs. The truth, though, is we probably would own a larger SUV if I didn't have the MotorTrend fleet to bail me any time I need something larger. I've always thought the Santa Fe would be a great replacement for our CR-V in an alternate reality where there wasn't always a minivan, pickup, or full-size SUV at my disposal. The Hyundai never feels unwieldy running suburban errands, and it has a just-right mix of cargo and people space for road trips with our family of four plus a usable third row for the half-dozen times a year when we bring friends or grandparents on shorter jaunts. This camping trip changed how I thought about our yearlong review Santa Fe's size, though not enough that I'd ever want more SUV than this. (There's always a rooftop cargo box for these gear-intensive trips.) Going Where No Santa Fe Has Gone Before It's a six-hour drive from metro Detroit to Drummond Island in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. That's long enough to be a slog with two small children in tow, except for the general air of adventure—we're going where none of us has ever been—kept things upbeat. We crossed the 5.0-mile-long Mackinac Bridge and ended the day with a 10-minute ferry ride to Drummond Island, which when viewed through our kids' wide eyes made it feel like we were living out the plot of a Richard Scarry book. We spilled the entire contents of the Santa Fe onto our campsite and set up the tent with just enough time to watch the sky explode into a candy-pink glow. Eric Tingwall - MotorTrend I picked Drummond Island as our destination when I was planning a trip with Nissan's overlanding rig because it's the Great Lakes State's best-known off-road destination. Now that we're on the island with a mall crawler, I'm stubbornly determined to drive at least one trail. The man behind the counter at the local outfitter steers me away from the trails that end at Drummond's signature off-roading feature, a set of stair steps known as Marblehead that lead to the water's edge. The boulders are likely too large for our Santa Fe's 7.0-inch ground clearance. He instead points me toward Fossil Ledges on the northern shoreline. A few large puddles near the trail's terminus might be too deep for our humble Hyundai, but it has been a dry year. I'd have to use my judgment to determine if it's passable. We drive about 20 minutes out from Drummond Island's sole flashing red traffic light before the pavement turns to gravel and then a rocky trail. This land sits atop the same limestone and dolomite escarpment that the Niagara Falls spill over some 300 miles away, and the terrain is far craggier than the sandy and muddy Lower Peninsula that I know. I pick my way around a few large rocks and through several small, shallow puddles, keeping my speed down to 10 to 15 mph to protect the Santa Fe's relatively low-profile tires from a puncture. It's easy but slow going. The trail is narrow enough that we have to pull over and stop for oncoming traffic, which gives me a chance to lean out the window and poll people on whether the puddles are too deep for our humble Hyundai. The first trail user we stop assures us we'll be just fine, saying, "I've seen people do it in a Subaru," which implies a charitable assumption that the Santa Fe is more capable than your average Subaru. That might be true if we were driving the Santa Fe XRT, which rides 1.3 inches higher and rolls on all-terrain tires. It's almost certainly not true of our Limited-trim Hybrid. Still, I get some reassurance out of the conversation. I've been worried that the efficiency-oriented all-season tires will get mired in muck in the middle of the puddle, but this guy tells me the puddle bottoms are all hard rock. Eric Tingwall - MotorTrend My confidence falters when the water comes into sight. Once you've seen someone hydro-lock an engine while off-roading, even the smallest puddle looks menacing. This one isn't particularly small, either. Puddle is probably the wrong word. Pond, maybe? It's roughly 10 feet wide and 100 feet long, wedged between grassy berms with impassable swamp on either side of it. I get out of the car and toss a few small rocks into the water, which reveals nothing. My wife wants to wait for another vehicle, hitch a ride across the puddle, and then hike the last quarter mile to the ledges on Lake Huron. I'm ready to drive through it. As we're having this debate, a convoy of side-by-sides heading in the opposite direction comes splashing through, revealing that the water is about a foot deep. Easy. We can do that. Except the driver of the first vehicle plants a seed of doubt in my wife's mind. "Seems a little deep for your car," she says. Then the guy bringing up the rear says we'll be fine with all the confidence of a tech bro explaining Bitcoin. That's all the push I need. We ford the puddle. The Santa Fe takes it swimmingly. There are no photos of this endeavor because that would require crossing through the water twice more to drop my wife and then re-run it to get the shot, and she refuses to be a part of that scheme. Fair enough. Eric Tingwall - MotorTrend The reward for pushing on is the kind of tranquil isolation that none of us gets enough of. Waves splash against the ledges, crisp air cools our lungs, and the sun warms our faces. For a moment, we've escaped every cell signal and the hectic world those radio waves keep us tethered to. It is glorious. We eventually pile back into the Santa Fe and head back the way we came, knowing what this SUV is capable of. Our long-termer just tackled a trail more rugged than most Santa Fes will ever experience. More important, when called upon, it rose above its station as an eminently practical suburban family runabout to save our camping adventure. More on Our Long-Term 2025 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid:
Liked by Thomas Wilson, Kaitlyn MorganLiked by Thomas Wilson, Kaitlyn Morgan
Liked by Thomas Wilson, Kaitlyn Morgan
