Stop reading. Well…not right this minute.

But, after you’ve done your research and your googling, you have to stop reading about living, retiring, and investing overseas…and get on a plane to investigate the possibilities firsthand.

Nothing substitutes for feet on the ground. You’ve got to walk the beaches, the pavements, and the hillsides of whatever overseas Shangri-las may be tempting you virtually. Only then can you know if any one of them is the right place for you to spend your time or your money.

Readers write every day to say, “I’ve been reading your letters for months (or years), and I’m convinced I want to make a move. What should I do next?”

Come to a conference. That’s why we offer them–because they’re the logical and the necessary next step.

You can do it on your own, and everything can work out great. But it’s tougher, and it’s less efficient. It takes longer, and it costs more money in the long run.

Before you make a move or invest your money in a new country, you need to engage a corps of resources you trust and to build an in-country network of support. You need an attorney, a banker, a tax advisor (if you’re an American, you need two–one in the new country and one back in the States), and a residency adviser…you need a shipping agency and an insurance provider…maybe you need to find a real estate agent who won’t try to rip you off (in some markets, not an easy thing), a property manager, or an architect…

Thinking a little more day-to-day, maybe you’re going to need recommendations for doctors, decorators, veterinarians, schools for your children, Internet providers, and cell phone contracts…

How do you get the electricity turned on in your new home? And then how do you pay your electric bill each month?

How do you find household help, a driver, or a gardener?

Where should you shop for appliances, lighting fixtures, and bedclothes?

What should you bring with you from home? Should you ship your car?

These are only some of the questions you’ll need to answer as you prepare to launch a new life in a new place. But what if you’re interested not only in reinventing your lifestyle, but also in building a new way to pay for it? What if you want to start a business? Then you’ve got another long list of questions to find answers for.

Again, you can seek out all this information on your own…or you can come join us for a few days in the country where you’re focusing your attention. You’ll be presented with answers for every question I’ve suggested here…plus you’ll be given every opportunity to ask every question of your own, as well.

The responses you receive won’t be theoretical. They’ll be real-world and born of experience. For every live event we sponsor, we convene our key in-country resources and friends, including the contacts and colleagues we work with personally. In Belize, Panama, France, and Uruguay, for example (the countries where we’re holding Live and Invest Overseas Conferences in the next six months), we’ll introduce you to the bankers, tax advisers, attorneys, residency experts, insurance providers, and shipping agents we’ve worked with personally.

We understand that every introduction we make at one of our conferences come with a strong personal endorsement. We take this responsibility seriously.

In addition to our corps of advisers in each case, we make other invaluable introductions, as well, at all our live events–to people just like you who have already made the move and who are already enjoying new lives in these new places so full of opportunity. These expats in whose footsteps you’re considering following are the best possible source of information and advice. They know what you need to know better than anyone. And they join us for our Live and Invest Overseas Conferences in the spirit of community, eager to share their tales (of success and, yes, of struggle).

At one of our Live and Invest Overseas Conferences, you meet dozens of people who’ve made the kind of move you’re considering…and you also meet dozens, maybe hundreds of people who are right now just where you are. Thinking, deliberating, considering the options. You learn from them, too, from their stories and from the questions they ask that maybe haven’t occurred to you yet.

This opportunity to engage one-on-one with so many like-minded souls has always been, for me, the biggest benefit of participating in one of our live, in-country events. After 20 years putting on conferences all over the world, it’s the reason I continue to look forward to every one.

Each Live and Invest Overseas Conference is a chance to make invaluable connections, to secure resources you can trust, to meet potential new business associates, and, perhaps most important, to make new friends in the place that well could become your new home.

New friends…and maybe more. Lief and I met at a conference I hosted in Ireland 13 years ago this month…

But that’s a story for another day.

Kathleen Peddicord www.liveandinvestoverseas.com