Transportation: how many cubic feet per camper?

[sumitagarwal]

Not exactly camping gear per se, but I live in NYC and am thinking about buying a crossover primarily for weekend travels, and with the hope of bringing as many friends as possible (this being NYC, most of my friends don't have their own vehicles).

Overall my target goal would be to bring friends and their gear for two nights of mild-weather trail camping with relatively lightly-packed internal framepacks. Since many of my friends are not especially experienced, I'll have some variation in keeping packing size down.

In terms of sizing when comparing different crossovers I'm seeing seat capacities from 6 to 8 passengers, and trunk capacities varying from about 10 to 24 cubic feet. The Toyota Highlander seats up to 8 (not especially comfortably, but my girlfriend and some of our friends are very compact) and has less than 14 cu ft of trunk space, or less than 1.75 cu ft per passenger. The VW Atlas seats up to 7 (comfortably) and has over 20 cu ft of trunk space, or nearly 3 cu ft per passenger.

So the question is: for 2 nights of relatively light trail camping, what's a reasonable estimate for how much trunk space I need per camper? If packing very light my thinking is maaaaybe 2 cu ft? A more reasonable estimate may be 3 cu ft?