Charles Boddie and Bianca Chan had careers on the upswing, but they quit their jobs and bought a sailboat to travel and pursue hobbies. Months later, they are happy with their decision.
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'... Or we could just quit our jobs and do whatever we want.'The first time it came up, it was more of a joke than anything. We were sitting together in the living room of our downtown Seattle apartment in April 2025, watching boat traffic on Lake Union, when Charlie suggested it.We were looking for options. Bianca was in the US on a work visa, and for weeks our worried families in Canada had been sending us news stories of US visa holders and tourists getting arrested at border crossings and enduring weekslong detentions.At first we casually shrugged it off, but as the news stories kept coming, we became less certain. Ultimately, our immigration lawyers advised Bianca not to leave the country for the foreseeable future.We took their advice in stride and continued to plug away at our jobs.We were making the most of Seattle's tech boom, but wanted something elseBianca was a senior finance reporter at Business Insider. What had once been a specialized beat — how Wall Street's biggest firms use and invest in technology — had exploded in popularity as AI became one of the hottest topics in the economy.Charlie was a software engineer within Amazon's payments organization. He had joined as a new college hire, but eight years later was on his way to becoming a principal engineer. He was then leading multiple engineering teams responsible for most of Amazon's buy-now, pay-later businesses in the US and Canada.
