The Magic of Number Nine

Each year on this day, we pause to mark another year of life on the road.

Published on July 18, 2024 – Narrated by Jim

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Today, we start our 9th year traveling full-time in our 2001 30′ Airstream.

Grooving on numbers and designing colorful infographics based on analysis is my thing – not so much for Carmen. Every Living in Beauty Anniversary, she steps aside as I release the pretty shiny numbers.

Numbers are both predictable and revelatory.

They explain things like why Carmen and I take more naps than we did eight years ago 😊 and also why Beauty needs new tires even though it feels like we just forked out a thousand bucks for them. Alas, the tires are five years old. Numbers don’t lie.

Even if you don’t like numbers, you can depend on them. I mean it doesn’t seem that long ago since we pulled out of Fiddler’s Cove on a beautiful summer day in 2016 …

… and here we are, still Out There in 2024, wrapping up 8 years of freedom of movement, living wherever we want whenever we want. A lifestyle widely known as “Living The Dream,” which we call Living in Beauty.

Journaling our long-term travel adventure honors the world’s oldest literature genre – beginning with “The Odyssey” – but without all the drama. We enjoy the ancient tradition of scary travel stories, even though their hidden purpose is to keep people close to home.

Mundane crises come and go and are soon forgotten, but the rewards of positive travel stay with us like jewels sewn into our garments.

Today, we begin our 9th year of living in Beauty.

The ancient mystique of that terminal number deserves consideration.

Possession is 9/10ths of the law. Is that a real thing? Do cat lives peak at 9? And, what comes after Cloud 9? Is Dressed to “the 9’s” the best Lady Gaga can do? And, “the whole nine yards,” is that a Hemp Olympix event? A stitch in time saves nine … of what exactly? ” So, if a 9th grader isn’t available to back me up, does “nine times out of ten” prove anything I want?

And, 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’ – especially if you’re swingin’ a 9 Pound Hammer at #9 coal mine where 99 miners are trapped inside. It takes 9 months for a human to gestate, and another nine months for it to sleep through the night. In Chinese philosophy, nine is absolute and ranges widely from Love Potion #9 to the early demise of poor Clementine.

#9 isn’t just a number. It demands attention.

In mathematics, #9 holds a special place too numerous to list.

Spiritual writings weigh in on 9’s significance.

In Kabbalah (No, not Cabela’s, the camping store), 9 means, “Truth.” Buddhism reveals the Human Spirit in the “Nine Consciousnesses.” Galatians 5: 22 states the 9 fruits of God’s Holy Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The ancient Greeks called number nine “the Horizon,” which is “unsurpassable,” the utmost limit of what can be discovered and expressed inside of our human experience.

We certainly hope our 9th year is not unsurpassable 😳 and the uppermost limit of what can be discovered 🫣, but we’re feeling lucky and game for whatever 🤗 because the numbers don’t give us a choice.

We’re looking forward to a fantastic and adventurous – yet, slower and more immersive – 9th year. But, today, we’re looking back at what we’ve already experienced in our first 8 years of full-time travel.

Here are some updated statistics

We have almost reached 3,000 days living in our Airstream.

Beauty has been towed 74,012 miles – that’s equivalent to circling Earth’s equator three times, and our Beauty had been around the block a few times before she joined our family!

We’ve lowered stabilizers 528 times, which averages out to 5 ½ nights between locations.

We’ve stayed at 69 campgrounds for two weeks or longer. Therefore, our best efforts to heed our 4-3-2 travel rule hasn’t panned out to our satisfaction. But, on the bright side, we’ve surpassed other goals.

Without even trying hard, almost 600 nights were FREE. That’s about one out of five nights. Not bad!

And, excellent public parks are easier to access than we anticipated. Though the majority of our nights have been at private parks, we’ve spent more than 200 nights in National parks and almost 600 nights in State parks.

While our favorite free spots are Harvest Hosts locations like wineries, breweries, farms, and museums – we’ve also camped over 100 nights for free on government-owned land.

Combining free and paid nights, our average cost per night for a campsite is $32 – about $960 a month. In our 9th year we’d like to average about $25 per night, as we managed to do in Year #1 and Year #8. That’s quite an accomplishment when in 2024 the average price for a campsite in North America runs $50 per night.

We’ve visited 49 states and 6 Canadian provinces, and stayed more than 50 nights in 18 of them.

Animated Maps

Our Animated Map tracks our travels. Check out the whole 8-year scenario. Hold on, it goes FAST!

Whew! It’s just way too much to wrap our minds around. One year at a time is easier on the eyes. Below is an animated map of each year’s journey with a link to our campsites.

Year One

July 18, 2016 to July 18, 2017

Click here for a detailed listing of our year one campsites

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Year Two

July 18, 2017 to July 18, 2018

Click here for a detailed listing of our year two campsites.

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Year Three

July 18, 2018 to July 18, 2019

Click here for a detailed listing of our year three campsites

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Year Four

July 18, 2019 to July 18, 2020

Click here for a detailed listing of our year four campsites

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Year Five

July 18, 2020 to July 18, 2021

Click here for a detailed listing of our year five campsites

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Year Six

July 18, 2021 to July 18, 2022

Click here for a detailed listing of our year six campsites

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Year Seven

July 18, 2022 to July 18, 2023

Click here for a detailed listing of our year seven campsites

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Year Eight

July 18, 2023 to July 18, 2024

Click here for a detailed listing of our year eight campsites

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If you like the infographics above,
click here for even more! 😊

When we left Fiddler’s Cove, we had no idea where this journey would take us, or for how long it would last.

We didn’t want to jinx ourselves by making projections, so we stuck to our plan to continue one day at a time, living in Beauty until something happened causing us to pull off the road and do whatever, whenever, wherever. Our retirement un-plan still hasn’t changed, but the world certainly has.

What does the future hold for Living in Beauty?

Good question.

We’re slowing down.

Starting our 9th year, we will travel fewer miles and stay longer in carefully chosen destinations. Like several of our full-timer friends, we are considering a trial period as camp host volunteers.

Since our first blog post on January 19, 2016, we’ve kept our followers up-to-date with the good and bad, pros and cons, tips, ideas, costs, suggestions, gear, locations and our philosophy for successful full-time RV travel.

A Changing World

In the midst of our 8-year escapade, Covid initiated a massive interest in RV camping. Since then, campground overcrowding is the norm (but in our experience the trend affects only the most popular areas with full hook-ups). We expect to see more full-timers on the road as the insurance crisis looms and the climate continues to warm.

In our first four years, we didn’t make plans or reservations, but these days – due to the frequency of weather extremes – defensive measures are an integral part of the toolkit.

Eight years ago, the world was a different place and our magnificent team, Beauty and The Beast, led us merrily through one crises after another without taking a hit. Now, eight years older, we are equipped, positioned and ideally housed to contend with – and adapt to – whatever comes next.

And that’s the magic of #9.

It puts oomph behind “Whatever” and our expectations are infinite.

So stay tuned, there’s more to come as Living in Beauty continues our quest for slow, pleasurable, safe, and sustainable full-time RV travel on this beautiful and rapidly changing planet.

Thank you!

We want to thank the nearly 500,000 visitors to our website who made almost 1 million page views. Wow! We are humbled.

In Closing

We dedicate Year Nine to the ultimate travel companion and security specialist, Pico de Gallo, our unsurpassed traveling dog who delighted our hearts for sixteen years, eight of them on the road. He is greatly missed, but we feel his presence every day. We love you Little Boy.

You can see our exact route on this map.

*Photos in this post, unless otherwise noted, were taken and copyrighted by Living in Beauty.

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