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.
