From Cult Escape to Freedom: Matthew & Susie’s Boondocking Journey

Some RV stories start with a bucket list. Matthew and Susie’s started with a dog.

On this episode, the hosts welcome Matthew Brittain and Susie Dory, a couple they first crossed paths with while boondocking together in Florida’s water management lands. Matthew and Susie aren’t full-timers in the strictest sense — they call themselves seasonal nomads, splitting the year between their 20 acres of land in Nova Scotia (where a 10-by-25 shed and a parked RV serve as their summer base) and a long, meandering winter migration south.

Their journey began in April of the previous year. By October they’d made it as far as Myrtle Beach, where they parked their tow vehicle and headed home to Nova Scotia for Christmas with their grandkids. After the holidays, they picked the RV back up and pointed it toward Florida — which is where they met the hosts. At the time of this conversation, they were already working their way home again, boondocking through a place called Townsend, Delaware, on a two-week trip north during which they’d been hosted an estimated twelve times.

The dog that started it all

Ask Matthew and Susie why they got into RV life, and the answer isn’t scenery or freedom — it’s their dog. They owned a condo in Arizona and had to fly their puppy there separately at ten months old, an experience Matthew describes as more nerve-wracking than almost anything else in their adult lives. The moment she landed safely, they made a decision: she was never getting on a plane again. Within two weeks, they had picked up the dog, canceled their return flights, bought an RV, and sold the condo. That cascade of decisions is also what later allowed them to buy their land in Nova Scotia — something they say they couldn’t have afforded while still holding onto the condo.

Boondockers Welcome and the community it builds

A big part of their story is Boondockers Welcome, a membership network (Susie estimates the fee at somewhere around $30–$40 a year) that connects RVers with property owners willing to host them, sometimes with power or sewage hookups, sometimes with nothing but land and hospitality. Susie explains the vetting works both ways: a host’s exact location and contact details stay hidden until a stay request is made, giving hosts the chance to check reviews and rig size before deciding. Matthew and Susie host boondockers on their own Nova Scotia property, too, though their access road limits them to smaller rigs.

What stands out most to them isn’t the free parking — it’s the speed of the friendships. Susie describes total strangers becoming lifelong friends within a single stay, and Matthew recalls landing at one host’s property just as the host’s son, a drummer, was throwing his bandmate’s 40th birthday party — Matthew ended up singing and playing harmonica with the group before they moved on.

Solar, a GPS, and a $5.90 average night

Practically speaking, their rig is a 2001 Southwind 32V with 500 watts of roof-mounted solar. The only appliance the solar and battery setup can’t handle is the vacuum cleaner, so the generator runs roughly 40 minutes a day, mostly to handle dog hair.

Their top piece of advice for anyone new to RVing: buy an RV-specific GPS. Matthew says a standard car GPS routed them toward bridges and roads their rig couldn’t handle, and the $250 RV GPS — which factors in height and weight — became, in his words, something that “saved our marriage.” Their broader rule of thumb: if semi-trucks can’t drive it, they don’t drive it either, especially since backing up a towed vehicle isn’t an option the way it might be with a fifth wheel.

The payoff shows up in the numbers. Matthew, who calls himself the family’s Excel-loving statistician, tracked their nightly cost from picking up the RV in Myrtle Beach through the trip home: an average of $5.90 a night — a stark contrast to the cost of RV resorts, particularly in a high-demand snowbird destination like Florida.

Keeping up with them

Susie mentioned she’s just started a blog to document their travels (in addition to being active on Facebook), inviting listeners to follow along as the pair continues their seasonal migration between Nova Scotia and the South.