Welcome to Living in Beauty.
We are Carmen and Jim Beaubeaux from Coronado, California. We’ve been together since we first met in High School in 1970.
On July 18, 2016, 2831 days ago, we left San Diego County to live on the road full-time in Beauty, our 2001 Airstream Excella.
We are not alone.
Soon after completing the transition from permanent static housing to this peripatetic lifestyle, we began to feel more at home in the world than ever before. Living mobile is certainly not the answer for most seniors, but this life suits us fine.
We love long open-ended escapes into the wilderness, but we also enjoy the flexibility of spending more time with our family members who are scattered across the country from sea to shining sea.
We have more neighbors and friends than ever before. Along the way, we’ve learned that many seniors prefer the full-time mobile lifestyle to the constrictions of traditional housing.
We are safe.
Over the years we’ve met seniors who find the RV lifestyle facilitates all the necessary comforts on extended sight-seeing adventures. Some rent their permanent homes to generate more income or have turned the house over to the kids. We’ve even met seniors who lost their homes to natural disasters and now embrace the advantage of mobility.
Most full-timers like us are simply dedicated to affordable and sustainable full-time travel. We’re Goers, not Stayers – at least for the time being and the outdoors makes us feel healthy.
Our rig is Family.
Our towing vehicle is The Beast. We can’t imagine towing without our 2014 Ram 2500 Crew Cab Laramie 4×4 Cummins Diesel.
With all the recalls it took a while to break The Beast, but it was worth it.
Call it love. Beauty and The Beast made it past the seven-year-itch and we hope they have a long and happy union.
Our dog understands us.
Pico de Gallo, our itinerant chihuahua, is sixteen-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 not poor.
We’re fully retired, fairly healthy and old enough to draw Social Security benefits.
Our mission is to travel throughout our remaining years as we go where no Beaubeaux has gone before.
Over the last 50 years we’ve owned several California coastal properties. Though we’ve abandoned the physical and financial burden of property ownership, we’re still proud California residents. Being property free is also a crisis management strategy.
We simply cannot afford (or morally justify) gambling financial loss due to a foreseen age-related health crises. Why upend our lives (and our care-giver’s life) by liquidating our major assets in an emergency situation? We are, by nature, practical long-term planners.
We’ve already had everything we ever wanted. Now we want to do things. These simple, stress-free years enjoying nature is the win for us. We have nothing in storage and no home-base. Everything we need is in our truck and trailer.
Of course, we get that most of our Boomer peers don’t get us, but so far this crazy thing seems to be working splendidly, at least these past 2831 days .
We’re having fun!
Every two weeks we live in the same house with a different back yard which someone else maintains, and the location is usually beautiful.
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 experience every moment as unburdened and LIBerated as possible.
Keeping a loose itinerary is more comfortable for us. Reservations are desirable, but flexibility is mandatory.
Our travel style is 4-3-2. Every two weeks, after the morning rush hour, we depart and drive for 4 hours, stop by 3PM and stay for 2 weeks. Along the way we might brake for breweries, gardens, hot springs, and farmer’s markets.
Our house is cleaner than yours.
On the day we moved into Beauty, our carbon footprint reduced by half. Every year since then our usage declines. Though we live mobile we average fewer annual miles than most American commuters and use a fraction of the water and power of a conventional two-person household.
Living in Beauty is our way of maximizing our life-experience as we reduce grid dependence. In the last eight years we’ve lived on less than half the money it would cost to finance a green remodel on our former home.
Okay, what else … ?
Our motto is, “No Fake Deadlines” and we’re sticking to it.
Since January 2016, we have published 200 posts. These days, we’re slowing down even more so we only publish about 14-16 posts annually.
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 of Beauty’s interior as of 2020, though we’re continually improving and modifying for increased efficiency.
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!
Ya’lls website is the BOMB!!! So many wonderful pictures!!!!!! To words…TABLE BOOK!!!!!!
Thank you! Jim
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
After listening to you guys on roads and stays I have started listening to all of your podcast, all the way back to 2016 Love your voices and the information.
Marie!
Welcome to Living in Beauty!
Thanks so much for listening. Only about 10% of our followers are listeners, so you are in a small exclusive group.
Whoa! We’ve been doing this since 2016!? Seems like only half that time has passed.
Life is good.
Safe & Happy Travels!
Carmen@LIB