Want to move abroad but not sure where to start? Has your planning stalled? Don’t know yet where exactly you want to live?

Here’s something that promises to get you unstuck and help you find the overseas adventure that’s waiting for you.

Next month, Live & Invest Overseas will blow out all the stops and put on a conference for expats and wannabes that will talk about, not one or two, but 20 countries.

In a conference call recently, the company’s publisher, Kathleen Peddicord, promised the conference in Orlando, FL will be the most ambitious she’s ever been involved in during her 25 years as an adviser to expats.

“Our promise is to introduce you to the top 20 country choices worldwide. We’re focusing on three regions — Europe, Asia and the Americas.

“This won’t be a journlistic, theoretical look, it’ll be very real life with lots of how-tos and practical information.”

Last spring I attended the organization’s Live and Invest in Panama conference. I had promised to give you my honest opinion about whether it was worth the price of admission, and I did just that here.

I told you then that I wouldn’t advise ever attending one of these conferences — unless you’re really serious about moving abroad.

Frankly, I can’t wait to find out what their top 20 country picks are, and why. I have some educated guesses, based on the experts they’ve announced.

Here are the countries I think they’ll focus on, by region:

Asia

• Vietnam
• Thailand
• Malaysia
• Laos
• China
• The Philippines

Europe

• France, specifically the Languedoc and Aquitaine regions
• Spain
• Italy
• Ireland
• Croatia

The Americas

• Panama
• Nicaragua
• Ecuador
• Belize
• Colombia
• Mexico
• Uruguay
• Argentina

Of course, that’s only 19 countries. . . we’ll see if I’m right, and what the missing one is. . .

It’s happening in Orlando, FL on October 14-16, 2011 at Universal Studios. I’m arranging my schedule to be there.

They’ll Address Your Stumbling Block — Whatever It Is

Conference experts will address the most common stumbling blocks to an overseas move, and will answer questions like:

• How much money will I need?
• Should I rent or buy a home? How do I do that?
• What kind of visa is best for me, and how do I get it?
• I still need to earn an income, how do I do that?
• What about taxes?
• Healthcare and Insurance

They’ll hold workshops on each region, with breakout sessions for specific countries. . . You’ll meet other expats and people who are thinking about making their own international move. . . You’ll have the opportunity to talk with experts and get answers to your individual, specific questions. . .

In short, you’ll have a chance to get expert views on where you should think about going, and how to get there.

And, if it’s anything like the Panama conference I attended, you’ll have a lot of fun, too!

Click here for more information, then select “Retire Overseas Conference 2011″ from the list at the left.

And if you decide to come to Orlando for the conference, let me know so we can meet up!

What’s your biggest obstacle to moving abroad? Leave a comment. . .

photo by Jeff Keen on flickr

I’m writing this from my hotel room in the Four Points Hotel in Panama City, Panama where I’m attending the Live & Invest in Panama conference.

A couple of months ago I asked whether expat conferences are valuable tools or expensive hype, and by the time we finish our meetings tomorrow night I’ll be able to answer that question for you.

In the meantime, here are a few highlights of the “Living in Panama” portion of the conference so far.

Living in Panama

One minute we were milling around the conference room introducing ourselves to our neighbors, and the next we were in full swing. Live & Invest Overseas publisher Kathleen Peddicord started us off with a discussion of why Panama might be the right place for us — or why not!

“Depending on your priorities and preferences,” she told us, “every plus can be a minus.”

Some might love the hustle and bustle of the city, for example, while others revel in the tranquility of a small town in the highlands.

But whether you like the highlands or the beaches, city or countryside, there are some things that are true for all expats in Panama.

The country is easily accessible

Panama is easy to get to. It:

1. Is the “hub of the Americas”
2. Has direct flights to the US and Europe
3. Has easy access to all of Latin America

Panama’s infrastructure is the best in Latin America

It has better roads and bridges, a better electrical grid, internet and banking services. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, Kathleen reminded us, but it’s the best in the region.

Based on her two decades of experience, Kathleen told us unequivocally that Panama is the best choice right now for retirement or for launching a web-based business.

Cost of Living in Panama

People ask all the time what they can expect their cost of living to be, and “that’s a question I can’t answer,” Kathleen admitted.

It all depends on your lifestyle.

She gave us details of budgets ranging from $800 to $7,000 per month, depending on location and lifestyle choices.

“On the western coast of the Azuero you can live on almost nothing,” she joked, “but that’s because you’re almost nowhere.”

Selling, Investing and Doing Business in Panama

Attorney Rainelda Mata-Kelly jumped in and walked us through some legal considerations for structuring our expat lives in Panama.

She outlined several legal entities (including corporations and foundations), giving us the pros and cons of each.

Most of her time, however, was spent discussing various types of visas and residency available. “Panama’s residency requirements are very flexible,” she told us. “You only have to stay in the country once every two years.”

Getting Around in Panama

In one of the shortest but most uproarious sessions of the afternoon, Leif Simon talked about taxis in Panama.

His best nugget of advice? Carry a thick stack of $1 bills around with you, because whatever your smallest bill is, that’s the fare the cabbie will demand. Get familiar with the fares and know them ahead of time to avoid being ripped off.

Who’s Attending This Conference?

After a few more information-packed sessions, we piled into buses outside the conference hotel to head into the old part of the city, Casco Viejo, for a cocktail party.

Held at the Panama Canal Museum, it gave us a chance to mix and mingle and meet other expats and would-be expats from all over the world.

I met attendees from Florida, Texas, Missouri, California, Maine, Virginia and several other states. I also met a young man from Cyprus; an expat Brit currently in San Diego; and a few others.

I met a woman a woman from Canada, finishing up a multi-month stay near Las Tablas, Panama by attending the conference before heading north.

I met a couple who’ve been reading about Panama and thinking about it for over five years, and finally decided to do something about it.

I met a couple from the US who’ve been living in Panama City for the past six months. They’re renting an apartment in Panama City while they look for someplace outside the city to settle down after a life of globetrotting.

I met another man who’s here for the first time. After the conference wraps up on Saturday he’s heading west to the house he’s rented in Panama’s interior, sight unseen except for pictures online.

I met a couple from New England who’ve been spending a few months each winter here for years.

In other words, I’ve met people at every imaginable stage of their expat journeys.

What stage of the expatriation process are you at?

Photo by kmacelwee on flickr

Guest Post by Kathleen Peddicord

photo by kokorowashinjin on flickr

“I’m ready to make my move, Kathleen,” explained an attendee at our conference in Panama City earlier this month. “I’m ready to go for it.

“But I’m so confused. I mean, what do I do first? And then what do I do second?

“Could you break it down for me, as though I were a child? Seriously, speak to me like one of your children. I need a step-by-step plan…”

Step 1: Identify a destination. Where depends on what’s important to you, what kind of lifestyle you want to lead, and how much money you have to fund your retirement…

Step 2: If you intend to relocate full-time, arrange to meet with an attorney in your chosen destination, one experienced helping foreigners established residency, to determine the best residency visa option given your circumstances. If you don’t intend to relocate full-time, skip to Step 3…

Step 3: Speak with a tax advisor (an attorney who specializes in taxation is best) in your chosen destination…and, as well, with a tax advisor (again, an attorney experienced with international tax issues) in your home country. If you’re an American, it’s especially important that you identify two advisors and connect the dots of your new tax life with those of your old one…

Step 4: Research rental options in your destination. I strongly recommend you rent first, to give yourself a chance to try your new home (country, town, neighborhood, street, beach) on for size before committing to a real estate purchase…

Step 5: Research health insurance options, comparing local, in-country policies (cost, coverage, restrictions) with those of international options like Bupa…

Step 6: Take your administrative life virtual. Make sure you can access all bank accounts, brokerage accounts, credit card accounts, and investment portfolio online and that you can move money around from one to another electronically…

Step 7: Figure out what to do with all your stuff. What’s coming with you, what’s going in storage, what’s being sold, and what’s being given away…
Piece of cake.

This is the approach we’ve decided to take for our first-ever general Retire Overseas Conference, which we’re planning to hold Stateside in May 2011. City and venue will be finalized this coming week, and registration will be open before year-end.

Meantime, the program is set. We’ll walk you through the process, step-by-step, of how to get from where you are now to where you want to be.

We’ll even help you identify the best place for you to think about retiring overseas, given your preferences, your priorities, your personal circumstances, and your retirement budget. The conference will consist of a series of workshops, very interactive, each led by a panel of experts.

Come with a dream. You’ll leave with a plan.

Stay tuned for details. . .

Kathleen Peddicord is the acknowledged expert in overseas retirement. She’s the author of How to Retire Overseas and publisher of the Overseas Retirement Letter. With her kind permission, we’ve reprinted the above post from her blog.

The following was written by Kathleen Peddicord in her Overseas Opportunity newsletter. I’m a big fan of Kathleen’s, and am happy to share with you her Top 10 lists, as well as the reasoning behind them. And, in certain cases, why you might be better off doing something completely different. Kathleen writes:

I’ve been inundated recently with e-mails from readers asking, “Why not?”

“Why not Honduras?”

“Why not Costa Rica?”

“Why not Spain?”

“Why not the Bahamas?”

Etc.

Why do I focus in these dispatches on the countries I do…and give less (or no) virtual ink to others?

I have a Top 10 list. On it are my picks for the best places in the world right now to think about spending your time and your money. This list has been created based on more than 25 years experience traveling the globe and covering this live, retire, invest overseas beat…and it has been compiled with the help of dozens of correspondents and friends who keep in touch with me in real time from all corners of this earth.

I can’t be everywhere at once or know, firsthand, the situation on the ground in every country in the world at any given time. But I can stay well-informed, with the help of smart, savvy people I trust to provide me not only with information (information alone is a glut on the market…often not worth the virtual paper it’s printed on), but, much more important, with perspective and judgment born of real-world experience.

In that context, here are my Top 10 picks right now:
#1: Panama
#2: Belize
#3: France
#4: Malaysia
#5: Ecuador
#6: Argentina
#7: Uruguay
#8: Croatia
#9: Dominican Republic
#10: Chile

The trouble with a Top 10 list is that it’s limited to 10. If I were to expand this list a bit, I’d add:

#11: Nicaragua
#12: Guatemala
#13: Mexico
#14: China
#15: Malta

Some of these countries make sense as full-time overseas retirement havens; some are more interesting for part-time living (because of the challenges and costs associated with establishing permanent legal residency).

All, though, offer particular advantages to the would-be retiree, adventurer, or investor.

That is not to say, however, they are the only places in the world that could make sense for you. You have your own agendas and circumstances, your personal experiences and priorities.

If you’ve been traveling to the Bay Islands of Honduras for years, for example, as has one reader who wrote the other day…have made friends in this part of the world…have begun shopping for a beach home on Roatan…don’t think you must adjust your plan and refocus your attention on Belize because I recommend that country over Honduras.

It’s true. Belize is generally more advantaged than Honduras. The whole of the country is English-speaking (while, in Honduras, it’s the folks out on the Bay Islands, only, who use English as their primary language of communication).

Belize is more stable politically than Honduras. Its currency is tied to the U.S. dollar (a plus for those with Greenbacks in their pockets). Its foreign residency program is one of the most user-friendly in the world right now. And Belize qualifies as one of the few remaining banking havens on the planet.

All of that is true, but it doesn’t mean that Roatan, Honduras, couldn’t make sense for you.

This is such a personal decision. I offer my Top 10 list as a guide, as some stars to steer by. Based on my long experience and with the help of real-time intelligence from friends on the ground in each place, I recommend these places as worth a close look. But, again, I understand, and you should, too, that they are not the only places to consider considering.

The other important thing to understand about any Top Picks list, including mine, is that, if it’s based on real-world experience and real-time intelligence, you can count on it to change.

Tax laws, visa requirements, real estate values, the cost of living, and the availability of quality health care…as well as the political situation, the value of the local currency, and the ease of coming and going from other parts of the world…all these things change all the time.

Just as some U.S. states are more appealing today as places to live or retire than they were a decade ago, some countries are more interesting to the would-be overseas retiree right now than they were two or three years ago. And we can expect that others will become more interesting in the future than they are today.

Any list of the World’s Top Retirement Havens, including mine, is a moving target. One thing you come to understand when you begin considering the idea of spending time and money overseas is that you must be flexible and open-minded.

Just as circumstances are changing dramatically in the United States right now, so, too, can they and do they elsewhere.

One way to hedge the potential risks that this truth implies is to diversify…not only your investments, but also your life.

Just as it’s smart to invest in different markets and to hold assets of different types in different currencies, so, too, are there advantages to spreading your life among different jurisdictions.

Do your banking in one country (where you can feel reasonably secure your deposits are safe), reside in another (where you pay no tax), run your business in a third (where entrepreneurs are respected and incentivized) and hold a passport in another. If possible, hold a second passport.

I didn’t invent this strategy, of course, It’s written of often, as the Five Flags approach. It’s about organizing both your time and your money (that is, planting your “flags”) to your greatest advantage.

Plant your flags based on your current circumstances and agendas. But don’t plant them in concrete. You might want to be able to move them around from time to time.

If you like what Kathleen has to say here, you’ll also like her Overseas Retirement Letter.

A few months ago I reviewed How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad by Kathleen Peddicord.

Kathleen is the publisher of Live and Invest Overseas, which publishes a free daily e-letter as well as a monthly magazine and other resources for expats and would-be expats.

Today, Live and Invest Overseas announced that the book is now the #1 international best seller. And when I took a look on Amazon, I found it is also the #1 bestseller in the retirement category (hardcover) and #3 as well (Kindle edition).

There’s a good reason for its success. How to Retire Overseas is a must-read for anyone considering making the leap to a new country.

Click here to read my review.

The book is available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle e-reader versions. Click here to order it from Amazon.

Guest Post by Kathleen Peddicord, Overseas Retirement Letter

If you haven’t yet taken action toward realizing your dreams of a new life in retirement abroad, I say now, get moving.

Many Overseas Retirement Letter readers have taken off for new and exotic lives in the overseas retirement havens that called their names (and we share some of their stories with subscribers in the current issue). What’s holding you back?

I can imagine many things. Over the years, we’ve struggled with our own Reasons Not To Move Overseas. In fact, we’ve probably had more reasons than most not to push ahead with our various international escapades, for our situation has been complicated.

Lief and I met in June 1997 on a real estate tour of Ireland (that I was leading). We both happened to be on that fated expedition as part of research in advance of moves to the Emerald Isle that we both, coincidentally, planned to execute by the end of the year.

At the time, Lief was living in Chicago; I was based in Baltimore. We were engaged to be married in September and wed in November. All the while continuing with our relocation plans for December.

Who couldn’t talk him- (or her-) self out of an international move under those circumstances? Certainly, nearly everyone we knew thought we’d taken leave of our senses.

Including my then 9-year-old daughter. Kaitlin wanted no part of any life other than the one she’d been enjoying in Maryland, where she had friends and family, including a grandmother she visited nearly every day.

The grandmother (my mother) wasn’t big on our international relocation plan either. When, the day before our departure, she stopped by my house so I could give her the foodstuffs and other things I’d packed into a couple of boxes for her, she remarked, tearfully, “Oh, how can you give away all your teas? Can’t you take these with you?”

I was more concerned about leaving my antique furniture behind, so I invested in shipping a container load of it to Dublin, where it then had to be stored for a year before we were ready to take delivery of it in Waterford.

Lief wasn’t able to sell his house in Chicago before our December move date, so we had to continue paying the mortgage on it the first several months we were living in Ireland.

The morning we were to take off for our grand newlywed adventure overseas, Kaitlin lay on her bed, holding her grandmother’s hand, and sobbing. “Please don’t make me leave,” she pleaded. “I’m an American. I belong in America.” Her cries continued for our first full year abroad.

Lief and I pushed ahead, in the face of Kaitlin’s reluctance, in the face of my family’s misgivings, in the face of financial complications and setbacks, in the face of our own uncertainties. We organized the shipping of my furniture and the sale of Lief’s. We sold both our cars. We researched Waterford schooling options for Kaitlin. We parted with personal belongings, longtime friends, family, and co-workers. On the face of it, we abandoned everything…except each other and our dream.

It was not easy. Life in Waterford was not perfect. Some of our friends and family still don’t understand, all these years later, why we ever made the move, and I can’t, even now, articulate a response that makes sense to them. Perhaps you will understand. We wanted to see what we might see. We wanted to glimpse how people live somewhere else. We wanted a chance to understand how life in a new place would be different and the same from the lives we’d
known.

We perceived so much benefit from that first move from Baltimore to Waterford that we enthusiastically embraced a second one, about seven years later, this time to Paris. Then, last summer, we relocated again, to Panama.

Looking back now, I see many points along the way when we easily could have talked ourselves into staying put. We’ve gotten tired. We’re worried about the children. We’ve been overwhelmed by frustrations resulting from the different ways people do things in different places around the world. But this is the point, isn’t it, we’ve had to remind ourselves…to discover how the rest of the world works.

We’ve addressed all the questions one must address when undertaking these kinds of adventures: What stuff should we ship? Which health care plan is best for our family? Where should the children be educated? Should we rent our new home or buy one? What about the pets? Are we doing the kids a disservice by taking them so far from their extended families? What if they don’t like their new home? What if we don’t?

Here’s the lesson I’ve learned as a result of all the research and planning that’s gone into all our globe-trotting over these past dozen years: You can’t over-think this. Thinking has its place, but then action is called for. You’ll always be able to second-guess your plan and to rationalize walking away from it.

Moving to a new country–on your own, with your family, whatever your circumstances–requires courage and conviction. It means ignoring the nay-sayers and your own doubts. Practically speaking, it demands persistence and high energy levels.

More than anything, though, executing a move to another country requires a naïve faith in your own ability to work things out and to make things work. You can’t possibly imagine and plan for all possible contingencies and eventualities. You’ve got to trust that you’ll be good on your feet.

So, again, I propose a resolution: Start now. Put the planning, the research, and the thinking aside. Muster the self-conviction to follow your heart. Your new life overseas won’t be easy, and it won’t be perfect. It will come with a set of challenges and frustrations that you can’t begin to imagine right now. So stop trying.

Because, I tell you, it’s worth it. I can’t articulate an explanation that satisfies my family back in Baltimore, but I can tell you that I don’t regret one day or one move of the past dozen years. Our experiences have been broad, our lives and those of our children have been enriched, and our memories are diverse and comforting. Each step executed (successfully or sometimes not) has given us the confidence to take the next one.

From Baltimore, Maryland, on the East Coast of the United States to the Irish countryside. From there to the City of Light, then, last summer, back across the Atlantic to the Hub of the Americas, where we now reside in a 150-year-old Spanish-colonial house in this city’s old town, Casco Viejo.

Where from here? I couldn’t tell you with certainty, but I can’t wait to find out.

And I believe that you’ll enjoy the same sense of childlike anticipation and delight as you make your way down your own path overseas…wherever it leads you.

So what are you waiting for?

Used by permission. To see more of Kathleen’s wisdom, visit Live and Invest Overseas.