Austin Willingham, 30, grew up in Decatur, Alabama, and knew from a very early age that he wanted to leave home as soon as he turned 18.
In 2013, Willingham went off to attend college three hours away at Troy University, where he spent every summer working odd jobs as a camp counselor, orientation leader and in the study abroad department at school.
“It felt like I was at some superhero college where people from all over the world are here in this one place doing the same thing. I got to meet some of my lifelong friends that I’m still in contact with,” Willingham tells CNBC Make It.
“We would share meals, we would learn each other’s cultures, we would travel together. It was truly a life-changing experience and it just really opened my mind.”
Willingham spent his junior year studying abroad in Sweden. While abroad, Willingham traveled all over Europe, visiting Germany, Denmark, and then the Netherlands for the first time.
“I got to see a lot of different places and it just showed me that I love all of it,” he says.
Willingham left the United States just two months after graduating college.
Austin Willingham
When his semester in Sweden was over, Willingham returned to Troy, Alabama to finish his degree but was already plotting his return to Europe.
“Once I came back from Sweden, I was just determined to move back to Europe and had reverse culture shock. I was asking my parents if I could transfer to a different university and complete my degree abroad,” he says.
“Me being the first-generation college student in my immediate family, my parents were really adamant about me just going ahead and finishing my degree.”
Goodbye Alabama, hello Ireland
Willingham spent his senior year researching his options. He decided to apply for a working holiday visa to Ireland, which allows U.S. citizens to work and travel in the country for up to 12 months.
Willingham graduated in May 2017 and two months later boarded a plane to cross the Atlantic Ocean to start his new life in Dublin.
“It was filled with lots of Guinness, multicultural friends, community and traveling on the weekends. It was just a great time in general,” he says.
While in Ireland, Willingham interned at a publishing company and then worked in human resources.
Willingham fell in love in Ireland and he and his then partner decided to leave the country and spend some time traveling.
“It was a time of either I could continue focusing on building my career or I could do like many other people that I learned from in Europe and take a gap year and go traveling and see the world, so I decided to go do that,” he says.
While living in Ireland, Willingham decided he wanted to continue traveling the world.
Austin Willingham
After leaving Ireland, Willingham went backpacking through Southeast Asia with his partner at the time. He taught English as a second language classes while the two traveled through countries like Vietnam and Myanmar.
In 2019, Willingham moved to Australia and lived in the Land Down Under on and off for five years. The same year, the couple broke up and in 2020, Willingham returned to the U.S. to visit his parents. Just a few days before his flight back to Australia, the country closed its borders due to the covid-19 pandemic.
“I was in the U.S. for a year and after a month of being [back] in Alabama, I realized covid was really going to happen, so I decided to look for work in cities that were close by but a bit bigger,” he says.
“Growing up where I’m from, a lot of people never leave. They never really experience much, and I knew that I was different from a young age. I just knew there had to be more to life outside of that, and once I learned that there was, it just made me want to be exposed and to explore that as well.”
From Australia to the Netherlands
Willingham returned to Australia in 2021, and met his current partner. When the couple’s visas were up, they decided they wanted to move to Europe. The two wanted a country that offers a more straightforward path to permanent residency or EU citizenship. That’s how they landed on the Netherlands, specifically Rotterdam.
“We thought that it would be a good break. It would be a good change and transition from life in Australia. We also thought it would not be as difficult a change because Rotterdam is still the second-largest city in the country. We’re definitely city people, so we thought that this would just be the best space for us,” he says. “As soon as we got here, the people were so warm and they immediately welcomed us in.”
Willingham and his partner plan to stay in Rotterdam for at least the next five years.
Austin Willingham
Willingham made the official move to Rotterdam in June, on a DAFT (Dutch-American Friendship Treaty) visa. That visa stipulates that he be self-employed or work as a freelancer only.
To satisfy the visa requirements, Willingham works as an event planner and does commercial modeling, but his ultimate goal is to grow his relocation services business, Willing World.
Willingham and his partner live in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate. The couple splits 430 euros or USD $498 a month for rent — paying 215 euros or USD $249 each — according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Including rent, Willingham’s monthly expenses in Rotterdam total approximately $680, covering utilities, transportation, health insurance, groceries, and his mobile phone bill.
“I like the freedom. This is coming from a privileged place, but I truly feel like anywhere outside the United States, it’s about being able to breathe and have a work-life balance. That’s what I love most about living abroad, even though I’m working for myself, there is still this balance and there’s not this societal pressure of needing to prove myself all the time.”
Willingham started sharing his journey abroad on TikTok and says that since moving to Rotterdam, he’s enjoyed building a community both online and in real life. He’s excited to see what the future holds, he says, but moving back to the United States is just not in the cards for him right now.
“I would love to live. I would love to own. I would love to say yes at some point, but not in the current situation that we have. It would be way down the line when the United States finally gets some change,” he says.
“I want to be able to be there for my parents, so maybe I wouldn’t move back permanently, but I would spend an extended amount of time.”
Willingham says that leaving the U.S. has taught him that he is capable of anything.
“I’ve learned that I can do it even when I’m scared because it still has to get done,” he says. “When living abroad, especially on your own, you don’t have anybody to depend on, so you learn to depend on yourself and trust yourself with it.”
Conversions from euros to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 euro to $1.16 USD on October 14, 2025. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.
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