The memoir chronicles a year of van life, personal discovery, and the search for freedom beyond the corporate grind, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and self-empowerment.
By Debbie Hall
For Juergen Barbusca, the decision to leave corporate life wasn’t simply about taking a break. After years of long hours and the pressure of a demanding career, he realized that two weeks away from the office could no longer provide the reset he needed.
What he needed was a full disconnect.
That realization became the starting point for No Overnight Parking, Barbusca’s memoir about a yearlong journey across the country in his Volkswagen Eurovan Camper, a compact vehicle he affectionately called “The Shoebox.” Along the way, he traveled thousands of miles, encountered unfamiliar communities, confronted his own assumptions and discovered a different way of thinking about identity, belonging, freedom and creativity.
Barbusca will hold his first official book signing from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15, at Copper Cat Books, 1570 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway in Henderson, Nevada. The event will include a meet-and-greet, book signing and an opportunity to talk with the author about the experiences behind his memoir.
For Barbusca, the van was much more than transportation. The Volkswagen Eurovan Camper was roughly the size of a large SUV but included a kitchen, sleeping space for four and a pop-top roof. It gave him the ability to travel independently while carrying a sense of home with him.
“It became a mobile sanctuary,” Barbusca says. “After a day of exploring, walking back to it felt like pulling into my own driveway. It gave me a sense of familiarity and a home in unfamiliar places.”
The title No Overnight Parking captures the contradiction at the heart of his journey. The signs represented restrictions, but encountering them also reinforced his freedom. Instead of relying on reserved campsites, Barbusca often pulled into rest stops, truck stops, big-box parking lots, city streets, neighborhoods, or businesses when he was ready to stop.
“No overnight parking signs were always the X-factor,” he says. “When I encountered one, I simply moved on. The freedom came from knowing I could always keep moving.”
That freedom came with uncertainty, but it also offered Barbusca an opportunity to reconsider who he was outside the structures of corporate life.
Early in his journey, he intentionally avoided major cities, seeking the slower rhythms of places such as Washington, Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas. After years of an intense work schedule and the frenetic pace of urban life, open spaces offered a different relationship with time.
He jokingly compared the experience to the theme song from the television series Green Acres: “Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.”
But the road also challenged him in unexpected ways.
“Personally, the journey taught me humility and awareness,” he says. “Creatively, it pushed me to examine my own reactions as closely as the landscapes around me. The road didn’t just change where I went, it changed how I saw myself.”
That examination of identity is closely connected to another theme in the memoir: belonging.
Life on the road offered both loneliness and solitude, and Barbusca learned that the two aren’t necessarily the same. At times, loneliness came from feeling like he didn’t belong, including during a July 4 celebration in Custer, South Dakota. At other times, he deliberately sought isolation.
Three days at Fort Pierre National Grasslands became one of the most meaningful examples. There, Barbusca found clarity, perspective, and peace—and captured the photograph that became the cover of No Overnight Parking.
Those contrasting experiences helped him understand that belonging doesn’t always require constant companionship. Sometimes, connection can come through quiet reflection and a deeper relationship with oneself.
The landscapes themselves became part of Barbusca’s emotional journey. Glacier National Park, Fort Pierre National Grasslands and Niagara Falls provided opportunities to decompress and see the world beyond the pressures of his former career.
“Large expanses of highway became what I affectionately referred to as my therapist.” The highways of U.S. 2 through Montana and U.S. 50 in Nevada, known respectively as “Hi-Line” and “The Loneliest Road in America,” offered him a sense of freedom he said he did not know during 60-hour workweeks.
As someone with experience in public relations, he knew how to write a press release or even a feature story, but writing a memoir required a completely new set of skills. That’s why he took an online creative writing class and worked with a developmental editor on learning how to tell his true story.
Ultimately, No Overnight Parking is about courage and inspiring others to embrace their own journeys of self-discovery and freedom.
Barbusca found inspiration in a quote from author Randy Komisar about the danger of postponing the life you want in the hope that you’ll have the freedom to pursue it later. During his travels, he also encountered a mural of Muhammad Ali in Mobile, Alabama, featuring Ali’s words about the courage required to take risks.
Together, those ideas reinforced what the journey had taught him: sometimes living authentically requires permitting yourself to take the risk.
For Barbusca, that meant leaving the security of corporate life, embracing uncertainty and trusting his instincts. It meant moving forward rather than waiting for the “right” time.
And perhaps most importantly, it meant permitting himself to live life on his own terms.
Join Juergen Barbusca for his first official book signing at Copper Cat Books, 1570 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway, Henderson, Nevada, from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15. Enjoy a meet-and-greet, book signing, and a chance to discuss his inspiring journey.
No Overnight Parking is available in paperback and eBook through major online booksellers and can also be ordered through independent bookstores. Direct ordering information is available at juergenbarbusca.com.
