The Future in Focus: Hannah Edwards finds DAFT Success
Hannah Edwards is a photographer and designer in Eindhoven. She used the DAFT Visa to bring Hannah Edwards photography and Edwards digital, her businesses she operated in the USA, to the Netherlands.
Why did you decide to come to the Netherlands? What were your other options?
When I was in college, I studied abroad in Germany for a year. That planted the seed. I’d technically lived abroad before, and I always wanted to do it again, but then life kept moving forward. I met my husband, we had two kids, and the dream of moving abroad was always sitting in the background but never high on the to-do list.
Moving itself didn’t scare me; I’ve been moving my whole life. What did weigh on me was America itself. My dad was a lifelong labor union organizer and my mom worked in social services, so I grew up being taught to question things, think critically, and recognize propaganda. The general imperialist, capitalist, creeping-fascist vibe of the U.S. has bothered me since I was young. Watching the Republican Party morph into the Trump cult wasn’t surprising, but it was still horrifying. Meanwhile, healthcare, homelessness, and work-life balance just kept getting worse. I was always looking at other countries and thinking how life could be different. The Netherlands had been on my radar for a long time as a place that seemed like a better match for how I wanted to live. It’s still a capitalist nation with its own issues, but they take care of their people and place regulations on business.
2016 felt like a nightmare, but I was younger and it was chaotic and poorly planned enough to live through. 2024 was different. Project 2025, Roe v. Wade being repealed, unbearable costs of living, the warped labor market, and endless school shootings all felt like the nail in America’s coffin. After the election I had a breakdown. I couldn’t tolerate seeing the parallels to Nazi Germany or 90s post–Cold War Russia. I was literally sick from watching the news. That’s when my husband and I decided it was time to actually pursue the longtime dream of living abroad, not just to get away from the constant fear and bad headlines, but because we believed there had to be a place more aligned with the life we wanted.
The bigger push, though, was our kids. What would their lives in the U.S. really look like? Kids don’t walk themselves to school or the park anymore. You can literally get arrested for letting them. School shootings are a constant threat. Healthcare was impossible to afford; even through my employer, it was over $1,000 a month with a $10k deductible. And while we weren’t in immediate physical danger, we kept thinking about the possibility of one of our kids turning out to be transgender? We wanted them to grow up somewhere safer, somewhere they could ride bikes in the street, play outside freely, and where vacations weren’t just a fantasy.
At first, we considered Portugal. My parents had been planning to retire there for years, and it’s kind of an expat hotspot. But the reality is, immigration there is deceptively challenging. Unless you’re a highly skilled migrant with a degree, the process is slow, bureaucratic, lawyer-heavy, and very expensive. If we had gone that route, it would have drained most of our savings.
During that time I was staying up late most nights, Googling, worrying, overthinking. That’s when I found the DAFT visa. At first I honestly thought it wasn’t real! It’s not well documented, the search results are confusing, and when I told my parents about it, they were skeptical too. But the more I researched, the more the Netherlands started to sound like the right place. It’s not a utopia, but people here are genuinely happy. Kids are happy. LGBTQ+ people are safe. The lifestyle looked like a good fit.
So we pieced together a plan from all the scattered resources we could find, bought plane tickets, and went for it. In the end, we came to the Netherlands for two main reasons: the DAFT visa was the simplest, most affordable path we found, and the Dutch lifestyle seemed like the best match for the kind of life we want to build for our family.
What has been harder than expected and what has been easier than expected?
Believe it or not, nothing has been harder than expected, because I was emotionally prepared for this entire experience to be an absolute mess. I knew that literally everything could go wrong. The beauty of this visa though, is that the money you are required to invest is always there. If you have a total emergency and you must return to the USA for some reason, you’ll have enough for plane tickets and a hotel room.That thought actually gave me some relief in the most stressful early days of arriving here.
We had a major problem upon arrival. I had arranged for a place to live before showing up. I found it on my own, and we paid for the whole month we would be arriving to guarantee we had somewhere to stay. We heard about the housing crisis and I was going to be ready. However when we got there after a grueling 36 hours of travel with the cat and toddlers, the apartment was nothing like the photos. The place smelled like rot and mold, and the walls were coming apart. In some places the walls were made of thin plywood that you could shine light through. The door handles were falling off, the floors were warped from water damage. There were so many problems that we literally could not spend a single night there with our toddlers. It was disgusting. So we got an emergency hotel and fell asleep. The next 2 weeks were horrible. We jumped around hotels and argued with the landlords. We were so scared that we had just made an enormous and expensive mistake. We found a longer term airbnb and I got to work trying to figure out what to do. We had several makelaars tell us we would need to pay for an entire year of rent upfront in order to land a place. We couldn’t comfortably swing that. Finally we found Homes for Expats and they saved us. I spent a night crying with relief when they told us our application for a lovely place in Eindhoven had been approved. They got us in here within 2 weeks, affordably. I’m currently in the living room of our home and I can almost not believe that period is finally over.
The moral of this story is that the housing crisis is no joke. Hire a reputable, reliable makelaar. It’s worth every penny.
What I’ve found to be easier than expected is the level of English spoken here. I am dedicated to learning Dutch, but I believe I could live my entire life here without learning it. Everyone speaks clear, precise English.
Additionally, the Dutch people are much more kind, accommodating, friendly, fun loving, warm, and engaging than people stereotype them as being. I have neighbors asking me to tea, strangers helping me carry bags, people almost daily striking up conversation. I remember hearing about their stoic nature and being intimidated, but they are actually very amiable.
What is the most interesting thing you have learned about (about yourself or anything you want to discuss)?
I think I’ve learned just how adaptable and versatile I can be. It’s taught me that I’m more resilient than I gave myself credit for, and that building a life somewhere new is less about being fearless and more about just taking the leap and trusting you’ll find your people. I’ve also learned that most of the Dutch stereotypes of coldness and rudeness are false. Neighbors invite us for tea, people help us in the street and on the bus. Expats are so friendly too, there are mom groups, even English-language pottery classes and comedy nights.
What one piece of advice do you wish you had been given?
I wish someone had told me not to stress so much about having it all figured out before we got here. With the DAFT visa you apply after arrival, so the truth is you just have to get on the plane and trust you’ll sort things out step by step. I wasted so much energy trying to line up housing and make everything perfect from abroad, and in the end it was messy anyway but it still worked out. I would’ve saved myself a lot of anxiety if I’d known that flexibility and persistence matter way more than perfection. I will reiterate: you must be flexible and adaptable to make this work.
What’s the biggest difference you notice between your life here and your life in the US?
The biggest difference is that people here actually have free time and enough extra cash to enjoy it. It’s not that everyone’s rich, but people really value their downtime. There are festivals and events constantly, downtown is busy even on a random Tuesday, and people vote in ways that protect their quality of life. That balance is something I never really saw in the U.S.
What is the best thing about your life in the Netherlands?
As long as I succeed and maintain my visa, my children will be safe from the psychological and physical dangers of living in the USA. There is so much cruelty, racism, division, sexism, homophobia, and general tension that permeates everyday life in the USA. People do not have enough and it makes them desperate. Not enough time, not enough money, sometimes not enough basic necessities. I remember having real, visceral fear about sending my kids to school with a bulletproof backpack, because school shootings are so common now they don’t make the news.
Any advice for making new friends and/or maintaining old ones?
Accept that you will likely lose some friendships or their strength may diminish a little bit. That is OK. The friendships that will continue will be strong. It’s actually a decent filter, moving abroad, because you discover who really reaches out and who checks in. I have regular calls and texts with a great core of people.
In addition, as I said earlier in this questionnaire, the Dutch people are really very friendly, and expat groups are all easy to find here and they are just like you: looking for connection and community. If you put in a little effort, friends come easily.
Beyond the generic food, family, and friends, what do you miss most from the US?
Having lots of ice in my drinks. I think that’s about it. And I bought an ice maker, so that’s solved too!
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