child carseats in Highlander

You've never driven a minivan.

Understand that the Highlander is the tall, space-inefficient, swing-out-door station wagon version of the Camry, while the Sienna is the tall, space-efficient, sliding door version of the Camry.

There is incredibly more room inside a minivan than in the comparable "SUV". That's room for people AND room for stuff simultaneously.

Once inside, you don't really know that you're not driving a Camry. Toyota went to great lengths to get that right--on both the Highlander and the Sienna.

You know, a minivan is not so bad. We bought a 1998 Sienna new and have used it for 2 kids and everything that goes along with camping/trailering many weekends per year since. As Elmo notes, it drives really well. I have had a lot of enjoyment driving that thing for 190K miles now. I thought I would feel like a non-sporty guy in it at first, but that went away fast enough.

You can fill it up with loads of stuff, both inside and on top, and it will pull a decent sized popup camper (done all that simultaneously, regularly). Tomes

The Sienna has 2 front 2 middle and 3 last row, I think it might be more difficult to put a child in the 3rd row with the 2 middle rows already occupied with childseats.