Juergen Barbusca
Juergen Barbusca left a demanding job in corporate America for a yearlong journey across the United States and Canada in a van he nicknamed The Shoebox. With a road atlas and a check engine light for company, he set out to right-size a growing work-life imbalance by exploring small towns, sweeping landscapes, and the spaces in between-right down to the perils of overnight parking.A self-described vanlife greenhorn, he soon discovered that the real treasures weren’t just iconic highways and spontaneous detours but the people he met along the way. Chance encounters, unexpected kindness, and an unflagging curiosity carry him through moments of adventure, introspection, humor, and solitude as he navigates a growing pandemic and an unexpected family crisis. In the end, he carries home lessons only the open road can teach.Barbusca steers his way to Going-to-the-Sun Road, The Cabot Trail, the Loneliest Road in America, and well beyond. Nights unfold in big-box parking lots, truck stops, neighborhood streets, and wide-open nature. He browses one of America’s last video rental stores, recounts the night he caught out on a freight train, learns the secret to making Dutch-oven biscuits, and engages with a cross-country walking minister. He also reflects on life’s twists inside Ernest Hemingway’s favorite haunt and observes the spirit of giving in action-one of America’s greatest qualities. Water towers, grain bins, abandoned places, and libraries become unlikely stops.Adventurous, thoughtful, and lighthearted, No Overnight Parking is an unscripted journey inspired by John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways. It blends travelogue, memoir, and the vanlife experience. Full of zigzags and split-second decisions, his storytelling invites readers to rediscover their sense of adventure and reminds us that sometimes the best destinations are the ones we never plan.
