- Charlie Walker, a Yelp product manager, moved from San Francisco to Tonasket, Washington.
- He'd worked remotely for almost a year. After he moved with his wife, Yelp went fully remote.
- They've been able to buy a house — and their mortgage payments are half what their rent was.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charlie Walker, a 35-year-old product manager for Yelp. Insider has verified his employment and rent and mortgage payments. This essay has been edited for length and clarity.
I've been working as a product manager for Yelp since November 2019. I create features for millions of small-business owners.
I'd moved to San Francisco from New York because my wife got into university to study nursing there. My commute to the Yelp office downtown would take me around 45 minutes each way.
We lived in the Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco in a 500-square-foot apartment with a roommate and our pretty large dog.
We liked our roommate, but being able to live alone, especially as a married couple, was really desirable. We just couldn't afford it in San Francisco.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I started working from my apartment. Trying to share a working space with the others was challenging.
After nearly a year of remote working, we moved somewhere small and rural
My wife finished school and then got a scholarship where she'd agreed to move for a job in a rural health clinic in Tonasket, Washington. It's about 30 minutes from the border of British Columbia, Canada. It has a population of about 1,100 — it's really small and rural.
We rented a double-wide trailer for a few months after moving in January 2021. It was the only option. Then in April we were able to buy a house here. Now we have a much bigger space than we did in San Francisco, with a garden. The woman who owned it previously was an excellent gardener.
Our rent in San Francisco was twice what our mortgage payments are now.
We've also saved some money because we don't go out for dinner or drinks as much as we did before; there are fewer options here. In San Francisco we'd go out to eat about twice a week. Now we go out to eat about once a month. But groceries aren't any cheaper than they were in San Francisco.
I love the freedom of working from home, but I miss office conversations
I don't have to commute — I just walk downstairs to my little office in our basement. For a while I'd do two hikes a day, one before work and one after. But now we have a 10-month-old baby boy.
One of the biggest challenges is staying cohesive within the team and maintaining good communication. We started meeting virtually once a month, and each person would, for example, share a photo of a trip taken or what they did last weekend. It's been very powerful to learn more about people's lives.
But it's hard not having those little moments where you're in a hallway chatting with a colleague or where you're able to go get lunch together. You definitely lose a little bit of that personal touch.
Yelp going fully remote was a big relief
I was the first one to move in my team. We didn't know how well moving somewhere so remote would work for my career.
I knew that Yelp would keep working remotely full time as an option after the COVID-19 lockdowns but that some people would probably opt to go back into the office. I was a little nervous about what it would feel like to have most people in the office while I was working remotely.
When Yelp made the announcement that it was going fully remote in June 2022, it was a relief. Moving here was a leap of faith. But knowing that the company was fully remote has unlocked a lot of opportunities for our family.
I value the sense of community — and it's been easier to make friends that I thought
Anytime you move somewhere where you don't know a soul, you don't know how it will work out. My wife goes into an office, but I'm working from home. I'm extroverted, so it was important to have friends to hang out with.
I was surprised to make such good friends. There's a great community here. I started attending some events hosted by a local nonprofit that's into environmental advocacy and education. They asked if I wanted to join the board. Now they're some of my closest friends. It's so easy to connect with people.
The pace of life has been such a nice surprise. We enjoy gardening and getting outdoors — we've even learned how to press apples from the local orchards.
My wife and I have moved every three years. But this is the first place where it's felt right. It's a pretty sweet life. Maybe we could live here for the rest of our lives.