Welcome to Living in Beauty.
We are Jim and Carmen Beaubeaux. We met in high school back in 1970 and have been San Diego County residents ever since.
On July 18, 2016, 2438 days ago, we left Coronado, California to travel full-time in our 2001 Airstream Excella, Beauty.
And here is where we’ve been traveling ever since.
But we are not alone. In addition to family members and friends who digitally track our journey, we’ve learned that we’re a part of a national wave of retirees who live full-time on the road.
Some have lost their homes to natural disasters and are looking for a safe place to live – others have left their homes to children and are reserving financial resources for their long-term healthcare – and many, like us, are simply dedicated to sustainable full-time travel.
Our towing vehicle is The Beast. We can’t imagine towing without our 2014 Ram 2500 Crew Cab Laramie 4×4 Cummins Diesel. But, no lie, with all the recalls, The Beast took a while to break in. Call it love. Beauty and The Beast have been hitched for more than five years now and we hope they have a long and happy union.
Pico de Gallo, our itinerant chihuahua, is thirteen-years-old. He began his little feral life in the swamps of Mississippi. Now, he rules our hearts, our home and several plush animal toys of no small importance.
We’re fully retired, healthy enough and just now starting to draw Social Security benefits.
Our mission is to travel throughout the remaining years of our lives. To go where no Beaubeaux has gone before.
We are proud Californians but no longer are we property owners. We feel, at our age, house and yard maintenance is a financial and physical drain. To keep things simple, we have nothing in storage and no home-base. Everything we own is in our truck and trailer. Yeah, it probably sounds extreme, but it works for us.
Every two weeks it’s the same house with a different back yard which someone else mows.
It took years of hard work and planning to begin LIB (Living in Beauty). We sold our homes and released over forty years of accumulated possessions.
Traveling light is the goal. To live as unburdened and LIBerated as is possible.
We’re simply wanderers with no firm itinerary. Our style is 4-3-2 : Beginning after the morning rush hour we drive for 4 hours, stop by 3 pm and stay for 2 weeks. We brake for breweries, public and private gardens, hot springs, and farmer’s markets regardless of how big or small.
Our motto is, “No Fake Deadlines” and we’re sticking to it. “No reservations” is another rule that we rarely break.
We publish a new blog post and podcast about twice a month. Since January 2016, we have published 183 posts.
Below is a 2-minute documentary produced by Wunderman for Best Buy about Living in Beauty.
If you want to see ‘behind-the-scenes’ and how the production team made this video, click here.
You can contact us here.
Here is a bit more about Jim’s career before he retired in July 2016.
Here is a short video showing the inside of Beauty as of 2021.
If you want to see our exact route, click here.
*photos in this post (unless otherwise noted) were taken and copyrighted by Living In Beauty.
Congratulations Sis & Jim. A beautiful blog site. We will love following your adventures. Be sure to come visit us in the Smoky mountains whenever the mood strikes. David is planning the driveway expansion soon. love, Deb
Love you Sis! Woo-hoo! We get dedicated digs in the Cherokee National Forest! So looking forward to being neighbors!
Congratulations. A wonderful adventure awaits. We pulled our 29ft Airstream for two years while we built our off grid retirement home. Loved every mile we travelled. You will meet the most helpful people, see the best the country has to offer and spend time around the campfire with those you love.
If you are every up near Toronto Canada give us a shout. We have plenty of room for your trailer.
Safe travels
Art and Mary
So happy to be in touch Art & Mary! We don’t have a date set but I am certain we will be in Toronto in the near future visiting friends who work there occasionally. We also plan to visit a friend and colleague who lives in Calgary. Oh, the anticipation to see Canada is excruciating! I will shout to you our plans as soon as they develop into something more. Thank you! Safe Travels!
Just happen to stumble on your blog and now a follower. Congratulations on your decision of freedom. The AS community seems very connected. I’m in a different situation. A 50yr old widower who wants to show my 13 & 15yr kids this beautiful country. We’ve been in the camping mode for 5 yrs. up and down the northeast. We have had the typical migration from tent to popup and hopefully in a month or so, a Flying Cloud 28 w/ twins !!! My kids have never expressed an interest to go to the unoriginal vacation of Disney. They love places where hotels rooms are not, as they say. So far booked this year Assategue Island, Great Smokies & Cape Cod. We hope that our new rig will get us places further south/west/north. Damn work gets in the way. I will look forward in reading and possible contributing to your adventure. Your plan resonates with my thoughts as well. Get out there poke around. Best wishes and maybe our campfires will cross.
(I do plan on getting some of those SS wine glasses)
Happy trails !!!
Neuman, from NJ.
Pleased to know you Neuman! We do hope you contribute your adventures here. My sister lives in the Cherokee National Forest and she loves to hunt for excellent camping, so maybe I can contribute to your adventures there … Primitive camping with some of the most pristine trout filled rivers I’ve seen since I was a kid – and, the roads are surprisingly good for having almost no traffic. We do hope our campfires cross! Your kids sound wonderful! If you ever get to our corner of the states, take them to Anza-Borrego Desert! It’s about as hotel-free a place as I’ve ever seen. FC 28′ … Woo-hoo! Happy Trails indeed!!
So excited for you guys, sounds like fun. But we will miss you at Bleu Whisk
Lori, every time we come back to San Diego, we will stop by and have one of San Diego’s best breakfasts at the Bleu Whisk.
Incredibly thrilled for you! Thank you for living my dream! It will be wonderful to ride along with you via this blog!
It was great meeting you at the Sarasota Sunny South Wednesday dinner and talking theatre. I am so envious of your constant trek. I too have wanderlust and travel whenever possible. I will enjoy your blog. You said it was long….it’s not, it’s very interesting! I hope we cross paths again.
You guys are cool…… I love your Airstream…. they are getting difficult to find no? can we see how its outfitted?
Janeakre, we love our Airstream. It’s an oldie, but it provides everything we need to live in beauty. Here is an Youtube.com of the inside of Beauty. We made this video before we started traveling full-time. Some things have changes, like the recliners, but most of it looks that same today. https://youtu.be/uXCZsSC6mH0
My favorite quote so far is, “Every two weeks it’s the same house with a different back yard which someone else mows.” Wonderful.
❤️
I too am a full-timer though I lost my traveling companion 2 years ago and it’s much more difficult now. Looking for like-minded souls to caravan with but I’m really wondering how in 2021 with so many people who have jumped on the RV wagon so to speak you can still do “no reservations”. If I ever leave the road it will be because of the aggravation of planning reservations so far ahead in order to be assured of having some place for my 35 ft class A towing a Honda Accord. How do you do it these days? I’ve been part of the 432 club since 6 months into full timing 10 years ago.
Sherry, so sorry for your loss. Congratulations on wanting to continue the journey. “Reservations” Yep, things have changed since COVID. For our 1st 4 years, we almost never made reservations. But now, since summer 2020, it has become more difficult. I broke with our policy and in September 2020, I booked every spot from December 1, 2020 to Labor Day 2021. CRAZY!!!!!! We lost a lot of our ability to change our minds at the last minute, but without doing what I did, we would never have been able to stay at some of the amazing places I was able to book far far ahead of time. It took me weeks of research and study to put together 34 different locations and have them sequential, one after another. Not sure if this is the future from now on, or if this RV craze will go away once folks can fly to their destinations or book a Cruise Ship. Time will tell. What I can say is it was still worth it, going through all the effort, so we could continue our full-time adventure. Glad to hear you have been a 432 club member for 10 years!!!!! Stay safe out there and maybe someday our paths will cross on the road. Jim