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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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After experiencing a drive-by shooting in Kansas City, 37-year-old Sam Correll decided he was “just done” with the U.S. It was the summer of 2024, and 60 days later, he and his partner, 29-year-old Spencer Claiborne, had sold their home in Missouri and moved to Europe.
They are among more than 1,000 Americans who have expatriated over the past year—a phenomenon that has appeared on the rise since the beginning of the year. Roughly 1,285 U.S. citizens left the country in the first quarter of 2025, according to a report from CS Global Partners, which analyzed statistics from the U.S. Federal Register. That is about 102 percent more than they left the country in the last quarter of 2024.
Should Americans continue to leave the U.S. at that pace, 2025 could mark a record in the number of U.S. citizens relocating abroad—an exodus that could put the country's economy in trouble.
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Leaving The Midwest For A Little-Known Country In Europe
Correll and Spencer had considered leaving the U.S. for a while before the event that prompted them to decide the time had come for their big move.
“I was actually at a cheesecake factory picking up a piece of cheesecake to take to a friend in the hospital, and there was a drive-by shooting during prom season,” Correll said. “I got knocked over from the stampede of kids running away from the shooter outside. And I was just there, like, what are we doing? It’s time for a change,” he said.
Correll and Spencer swapped Kansas City—the city of the Kansas Chiefs and Taylor Swifts, as their European friends know it—for Albania, a country that was not on their radar when they started their search for a new home away from home.
“We went to Portugal, Malta, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and had a great time, but we didn’t really click with a specific city or anything,” Correll said.
Then they learned that Albania offers Americans a 12-month visa-free travel on arrival. “It’s a really, really easy destination to leave and then figure it out as you go, as opposed to someplace like Portugal or Italy.”
That made the difference for Correll and Claiborne, who were able to leave their previous life behind quickly—even their first home, which they had bought in Kansas City in 2019.
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“It was a historic stone cottage that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we really poured a lot of heart and soul into,” Claiborne told Newsweek. “I like to say it was like a child. We had finally gotten it all finished and it was exactly what we wanted—and that was the point in which we were selling,” he said.
Claiborne was a little hesitant at first to let it all go, “Like, man, we just spent all this time and effort and energy to make our house perfect,” he said. “But I wasn’t going to let that hold us back.”
Now Claiborne, who is talking to Newsweek from their sun-kissed terrace in Albania with views of the sea, “can’t imagine a better place to live.
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Striking Out On Their Own - By Helping Others Do The Same
Both Correll and Claiborne left good jobs behind—one was a tech consultant working with global companies, the other sold accounting software and helped large companies implement enterprise systems.
But one of the things they love about living in Albania is that the work culture there is not nearly as demanding as in the U.S.
“The U.S. is just so work-oriented. You wake up before the sun rises, you get in your car, you commute to work, you work, and then you go home after the sun sets, and maybe you have a couple hours of television,” Claiborne said.
“And I think as I got more into the kind of rut and routine of a corporate career, I realized that’s not something that was going to make my soul feel happy for another 30, 40 years,” he added.
The lower cost of living in Albania, as well, has helped to make up for some of that lost income.
While Claiborne and Correll worried about taking a pay cut and striking out on their own, they found something they love doing in Albania: helping others who might want to leave the U.S. through their company, Smile Abroad.
They started with an idea to open a dental tourism business there, but that quickly morphed after they realized, through Facebook and Reddit, “the sheer number of people that were feeling similar to the way that we were feeling, especially as this year progressed and as the new administration came into power,” Correll said.
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The couple has been receiving 5-10 calls a day for months from people seeking urgent assistance in “getting out” of the U.S. A Reddit post discussing their experience moving to Albania has garnered nearly 500,000 views as of now.
Through the business route opened up by their new initiative, they were able to apply for residency. “It’s very straightforward for Americans. The requirements are very minimal, to be frank. It’s a very easy path,” Correll said. “This is up to the immigration office, but oftentimes Americans are issued five-year residency permits upon their first application.”
Thriving In A Different Culture
Correll and Claiborne have been pleasantly surprised by Albania, a place where the first question someone asks you upon meeting you is not, “What do you do?” they said. They have found the peace of mind they were seeking in disconnecting from the U.S., which now feels a world away.
“I think I was having a conversation the other day with an Albanian friend of mine trying to explain the concept of food deserts, which is something that we have a lot in America, where there’s no grocery store, no access to fresh food within walking or driving distance of a lot of homes,” Claiborne said. “That’s just not a concept here in Albania. There’s fresh fruits, fresh veggies.”
The couple has found a thriving community of digital nomads and expats, and they have been trying to mingle with the locals.
“It’s also been wonderful to disconnect from the noise and the chaos that’s going on in the United States,” Claiborne said. “One of the things I like to tell people when they have a consultation call with us is that, after you get out, a lot of people do what we did—which is you kind of sleep, you kind of hibernate for like a month,” he explained.
“And then you come out of the fog and you’re free from the noise. You can hear fireworks in the distance without ducking, thinking it’s gunshots. And you can kind of relax and enjoy life. And so that’s definitely been what I think we’ve gained from this.”
Surprisingly, both think they have been made more patriotic by living in Albania. “Hearing our language teacher talk about how, during communism, it was the voice of American news, the Radio Free Europe, that alerted them to the fall of Yugoslavia. You know, it’s really opened my eyes to the good that America and Americans do and have done across the globe,” Claiborne said.
But neither is thinking about going back to the U.S. anytime soon. “I think prices are too high. Of course, never say never, but I’m very happy being in Albania now,” Claiborne said.
“I very much appreciate and love the country that I was born in, but it’s in a dark spot right now. And for my mental health, at least, it’s not a place that I want to be,” Correll said.
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