- Gareth Wild spent 19 months methodically parking in all 108 Sainsbury’s bays.
- He ranked each parking bay by desirability using a detailed spreadsheet system.
- This unusual supermarket project was not his first and likely will not be his last.
We’ve all been there: circling the local supermarket car park, hunting for a good spot near the entrance. Most people just want to park quickly and get on with their shopping, but one dad in the UK saw it differently. He decided to make a game of it, setting himself the task of parking in every single space in the lot. What started as a way to break the monotony turned into a long-running challenge, and he kept at it for nearly two years.
Gareth Wild, a father of two from Devizes, UK, who works in marketing, found himself in the spotlight for his unusual hobby, even earning a feature on the BBC. Over the course of one year, seven months, and two days, he managed to park in all 108 available spaces at his local Sainsbury’s supermarket, marking each one off as a small but satisfying achievement.
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The 44-year-old approached the task with surprising precision, using satellite imagery to map the car park and assign numbers to each space, excluding those reserved for disabled drivers and motorcyclists. Driving his previous-generation Skoda Octavia Combi, he methodically checked off spaces one by one during regular shopping trips.
Along the way, he logged the date and time for each completed spot and kept track of parking fees, which totaled £89.20 ($120) across the entire challenge. That figure pales in comparison to the £9,567.26 ($12,700) he spent on groceries over the same period.
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Perhaps the most entertaining detail is how he categorized the spaces into “God Tier,” “Useful,” and “Avoid,” based on convenience. Unsurprisingly, the most desirable spots were the two closest to the entrance, typically reserved for families.
Driven By Boredom
Speaking to My London News, Gareth explained his motivation: “Boredom was probably the starting point. I have to do the weekly shop, so it keeps me amused doing little things like this. It was a little bit sad to see it end because it is part of your routine for so long that when it does finally end you have got to find the next thing to do.”
He added, with a hint of self-awareness, that his “wife is fully supportive of my peculiarities.”
Believe it or not, this isn’t Gareth’s first rodeo in the world of competitive parking, either. Back in 2021, he completed a six-year run in Bromley, working through a much larger 211-space lot. After relocating in 2024, he revived the challenge in Devizes.
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You can probably guess what comes next. The UK dad has already set his sights on a new challenge, this time at a local Morrisons with more than 400 parking spaces, enough to keep him busy for quite a while.
For all the everyday ordinariness of the hobby, Gareth says the reaction has been surprisingly enthusiastic. Plenty of others are now considering giving it a go in their own local supermarket car parks. Speaking to the BBC, he laughed: “What a thing to have a favorite parking space. I’ve really reached the peak of life here”.
