When moving to another country, information and contacts are everything. In my research of starting my business here in Lima, I spend alot of time searching for information about the expat life, how to start the company, what visa requirements there is and general information about living in the country. In this post I’ll try to describe some of the sources I find most usefull for information and contacts when moving to Peru.

ExpatPeru.com – all the information you need
I think ExpatPeru.com is my most used source for information. On the site they have all sorts of usefull information, articles and more – everything an expat needs. But for me the most important thing about the site, is the forum. Being active and posting in the forum can first of all get you alot of good contacts, but second of all makes you much more clever on the expat life. This is where you go to ask other expats for helps on problems with moving to Peru. People on this forum are generally very nice, and spend a lot of time answering your questions and helping your.
Through this forum I got several valuable resources – I will highly recommend this to everyone thinking of moving to Peru or living in Peru.

LivingInPeru.com – Another interesting expat community
On Living in Peru you can find alot of usefull information as well as news from Peru. This site also have a big forum, but I have to admit that I have not yet used this forum as much as ExpatPeru.com. I think the best thing about Living in Peru is their Classifieds section, where everyone can put up an ad for apartment, jobs, selling private stuff or whatever you need. I actually found my current apartment through the classifieds section of Living in Peru.
All in all the site is not that different from ExpatPeru.com, but I think its mostly about just picking what you like best, or use both. I plan to use Living in Peru more in the future, as this also is a good place to get contacts and information about moving to Lima.

Other good resources
There is quite a few sites out there, but here is some of the other valuable sites I’ve used so far to find information about moving to Lima:

The Ultimate Peru List
A great list made by naturegirl321 from the Living in Peru forum. This list covers almost everything you need to know, if your looking in to moving to Lima!

Expat blog
This site is mostly interesting because it links to a lot of different expat blogs, where people tell the tales of their lives in a new country. You can also list your own expat blog here.

More expat resources?
If you know more good expat resources, especially for South America, feel free to leave a comment on this post, and share your experiences. What do you think about the online expat communities? And what are your thoughts of using the internet as a way of not only getting information, but also vital business contacts and contacts to other expats in general?