A 29-year-old former tire shop manager who quit his job and cashed in his retirement savings to buy a sailboat has become a social media sensation as he sails from Oregon to Hawaii with his cat, Phoenix.

Midway while sailing across the Pacific with just his cat named Phoenix, Oliver Widger reflected on why he thinks his many followers — more than a million on TikTok and Instagram — are drawn to his story of quitting his 9-to-5 job and embarking on a journey from Oregon to Hawaii.

“The world kind of sucks and, like, I don’t think I’m alone in how I felt with my work,” Widger, 29, told The Associated Press on Wednesday via Zoom. “You can be making $150,000 a year and you still feel like you’re just making ends meet, you know what I mean? And I think people are just tired of that and working really hard for nothing and want a way out.”

He abruptly quit his job with “no money, no plan” and $10,000 of debt.

He liquidated his retirement savings, taught himself to sail mostly via YouTube and moved from Portland to the Oregon coast, where he spent months refitting the $50,000 boat he bought.