International Living Bewertungen 

Very informative
Variety of topics to learn about
Truthful insight from trusted resources
Accessibility to experts
FUN!

The conference was A++. I came with preconceived ideas about where I wanted to go and the conference confirmed it but also provided other countries and opportunities I hadn’t thought about. This was 100% comprehensive. A soup to nuts conference in what to do to move to another country. Just fantastic.

IL covered alot of bases - things we all need to deal with if moving overseas. Also, if you went and missed a particular presentation, it's all recorded so you can view later.

Went to the Bootcamp. Was not impressed. This "bootcamp" could have been a 1 day event. The first day was interesting because they had people living abroad telling you about their respective countries and why you should live there. The rest of the time was on an unwitting and captive audience that was not prepared for them pitching real estate, oil and gas leases, coins, and non-grantor foreign trusts. The worst part was Ted Bauman. He is not a lawyer. But, he got on the podium and gave incorrect and misleading legal advice to the audience. I am a lawyer. I know. They have a "disclaimer" in the back of the handout that they never made obvious to the customer that purportedly absolves them from all liability if you take or rely on their advice. Shame on them. They need to stick to showing you how to move overseas; not invest your money or give you bad legal advice. In California that is call the unauthorized practice of law and it is a crime.

1. Content, very good, informative, maybe short (1m) videos of experiences of people, not testimonials, but experiences/bump resolutions....
2. Politics (slanted) did creep in some, not needed. Inferred Trump causing the problems, "financial collapse", when it has been happening for the past ~50 years...
3. Possibly using "tracks" in the schedule to help aligning the topics day to day.
4. Awesome execution! Overall stayed on schedule, though some were cut a bit short.

I liked that a lot of information about various countries was available and that there were representatives with whom to discuss various issues about which we have questions or in some cases which we hadn’t considered.

In my opinion, the individual presentations varied widely in quality, depth, and usefulness. As an example, many things discussed by the presenter on moving internationally was potentially useful but his slides were unreadable given background picture and type font. Similarly, another presenter talked about slow walking through Europe without leaving Europe but didn’t explicitly state how to do that. Many presenters obviously had not practiced, some were not the greatest public speakers, some hadn’t proof read their slides or had content coordinated with the slide. Many presenters flipped through slides so quickly that it didn’t make sense to have had a slide in the first place although the rapidity of their flipping through slides in most cases reflected poor time management in their presentation or accrued time loss across multiple presentations in a session block. All reflect a lack or quality control and preparation both by individual presenters and by IL.

Finally, it is not useful to have a short introduction presentation followed by a more in depth discussion later in which the former information is repeated in whole taking up the short time available. Moreover, while I recognize there is an issue with wanting to repeat some sessions, there are presenters who materially took up too much time of the overall conference to the detriment of other content (RETA repeated in whole or part at least 2-3 times, CRYPTO in part at least 3 times, etc.). While I recognize there may be demand for that content and it is central to IL’s content and services, your attendees likely only need one opportunity to see that and presenting it once without competing presentations would afford much more time in your schedule to accommodate more in depth or longer presentations of other information that is just as important and harder to acquire.

To close, the food service within the conference was too little and the time for lunch given the number of attendees and venues nearby was too short.

(1) Provide at least a box lunch. 400+ senior citizens is a lot to unleash on a hotel restaurant at one time - this was a holiday weekend and other area restaurants were closed. (2) People pay a lot of money for this conference and gave up an entire holiday weekend to be here. Every session should be value-add. To that end: (A) Laypeople/expats are maybe OK for the speed-dating portion but their deeper-dive talks were almost always a verbatim repeat - waste of time. (B) The in-depth talks on countries should be the attorneys etc. who can talk knowledgeably about what is required to move there. (C) There was a LOT of duplication (oil&gas, Ronan and Jeff in particular stand out here). Remove the overlap, have them make their spiel only once and use the extra time from their 2nd/3rd/4th spiels to give more time to complex topics like tax, social security, Medicare, finances. 10-15 minutes is not enough for those. (D) We all felt for the Thai expat who is not a public speaker, but that should have been vetted ahead of time. (E) The presentations should be rehearsed to run to time. France’s expat ran long and didn’t care, which gave short shrift to the immigration attorney whose content was actually useful. (F) The slide decks were almost always illegible. Too small font, white text on patterned background, too much text, and then the speaker flipped through them without speaking to them - wasted slide. You need to provide coaching and guidance ahead of time, break up the slides yourself if you have to. (G) The nuts and bolts of moving - 1st speaker had 10 minutes and spent 7 of them on his life story. Otherwise all we learned from him was “be careful.” 2nd speaker was more of a sum-up of what we’d already been told - if it’s “nuts and bolts” of moving, I expected to hear about actually moving stuff overseas - customs? Packing? Things to consider? None of that was covered. (H) Pet session didn’t discuss bringing pets back to the US from overseas - that is different and harder. (I) Medicare presenter was MAGA and it showed. Biden was “crafty” and the OBBB “isn’t going to change Medicare next year” (when everyone but Fox News viewers knows the changes won’t hit till after the midterms). If he’s an expert he should have more to offer than Fox’s talking points. It hurt his credibility. His talk also assumed a level of familiarity with the subject matter that I at least didn’t have - less breezy chitchat and more step-by-step explanation. (J) Jeff’s session on Schengen hopping didn’t actually explain the mechanics of how to hop or what that is accomplishing.
(3) Bottom line: IL is in the business of communication. Many of these sessions did not have good communicators. There were useful tidbits scattered throughout, but more rehearsal, more focus on polished and professional presentations with less overlap and repetition would enhance your brand rather than detract from it. I recognize there will be some sales pitches like crypto, oil&gas, RETA, etc, but there was a very heavy emphasis on those and less on information that would be more useful to your attendees.

Close to 5 stars! A few suggestions to improve: 1) quality of presenters and content is inconsistent. A few sessions were disappointing. 2) leave time for at least 1-2 questions from the audience.

The very broad range of topics presented by experienced and knowledgeable people made it easy to find something relevant to me. Having 3 choices for each time slot was very useful and the choices at each time slot were diverse so that we found something interesting for almost every session. The Bootcamp information packet has so much useful information to refer to after the event

Really eye opening! The event was at the perfect location and hotel. I can’t think of a single thing to change. It was all very well thought out

An incredible amount of useful information for moving overseas.

Jeff Opdyke's GOLD Masterclass was a powerful introduction to key strategies for investing in gold. Beyond the basics, the various strategies were mostly new to me and filled me with new opportunities and ideas to choose from. Jeff is incredibly knowledgeable and experienced and made it easy to understand and learn.

I subscribed to the gold "Masterclass" with International living and although it was well presented this was just Basic info on gold, the how to earn income from gold was buy dividend paying major miners or streamers. This was no Masterclass it was routine info and nothing new especially for the cost of $747!! What a misleading scam.

Very comprehensive and insightful presentation explaining why owning gold is essential and delivering a multi-pronged approach to set up a diversified gold portfolio. Covers physical, paper, and digital holdings, including recommendations and pitfalls. Very useful in creating a well balanced portfolio that has an excellent chance of appreciation given the uncertainties of today’s financial climate.

I have subscribed to IL for many years now and mostly enjoyed the information while avoiding buying their products and investments. I decided to unsubscribe and went to their website and unsubscribed from everything. But they have ignored my actions and keep sending me emails weekly. They say they have a NO SPAM policy, which obviously is not true. Once they get their hooks in you they won't let go.

I got an email stating my subscription was cancelled as per my request. I never sent them a request to cancel. Then when I phoned to inquire about the cancellation they wanted a credit card to reactivate which was not an issue. But then she wanted my security code for the card which I will not give to any one unless I enter the payment information online directly. Not sure what is going on with this organization with mysterious emails and then the credit card issue but decided this was time to depart from this group. Was not really getting a lot of value from the membership other than numerous emails weekly and a magazine every quarter.

Hard time cancelling my membership. Auto renew kept popping back on when turned off.

An absolute waste of money.

This was focused and the speakers did not go over their time limits.

I found every presentation that I went to very enjoyable and valuable. I skipped 3 presentations over the course of the conference because I needed to, and it was easy to slip back in because they stayed right on schedule. The hotel and its food were top notch, and now I feel like I’m an expert in all things Costa Rica.

I came into this program not knowing what to expect. But by the second day I am in the process of planning the timeframe to make the shift