Second Life can be a lot of fun, that is, if you know what you're doing. Getting started can be hard though. What's a person to do once you enter a virtual world anyway? How do you get where you want to go? Find what you want to find? Meet people? Starting is the hard part.

Second Life is an online virtual world where you can be anything you want to be and do anything you want to do. You could even create your own virtual life.

There's land to be bought, people to meet, money to use. Build your own home, meet someone special and build your virtual life. Or just have fun! There's so many things to do in Second Life, you may never get bored.

Let's get started and try to put Second Life into perspective. First you'll need to download and install Second Life. Then you'll need to sign up and choose your new name, your name in Second Life will be a combination of names that you pick during the Second Life sign up process. Once you sign up and log in, you'll be ready to start.

Orientation Island

Orientation Island is where most people will start their Second Life journey. I recommend this because getting around and communicating in a virtual world are not even close to the same as they are in the real world.

On Orientation Island you'll be required to complete four tasks. I recommend doing as many as you can. Spend some time there and really get to know what you're doing before moving on to the rest of Second Life. You'll thank me later if you do.

Browse through all four parts of Orientation island. Each section will teach you some new things. You'll learn every single thing you can learn on Orientation Island while living in Second Life, so pay attention. When you're finished in Orientation Island you'll be ready to move on to the mainland of Second Life and start living.

As I said, Orientation Island is made of four parts:

Move
I recommend starting with this section. In the move section of Orientation Island you'll learn how to move around in Second Life, climb steps and even drive a car. That's right, Second Life has cars and you can drive them.

If you think walking or driving are too hard or too slow why not try your hand at flying or teleporting. Flying is nice because you can see the scenery from up above. The fastest way to get around in Second Live is teleporting. Teleport to a place you want to go or to a person you want to visit. This can be tricky, so study hard while in the Move section.

Search
Learn to find what you're looking for in Second Life. There are so many places to visit and so many things to do, you're really going to need to know how to search for what you need. There are communities you can join, events you can take part in, land you can buy, shopping to be done and a lot more.

What do you want to do? Shop, dance, meet people, buy property? All these things can be found in Second Life. Once you learn how to search you'll be able to find everything and anything you want.

Appearance
You're avatar is a virtual you. Make it look the way you want it to. Change your avatars height, weight, hair, clothes and facial features. Anything you want to look like, you can look like in Second Life. Be male or female, or a little of both if you like, it's really up to you. Also learn how you can buy things for your virtual self in Second Life, you'll need this skill to get the things you want.

Communicate
Second Life is a social networking site after all. You're going to need to know how to communicate with other Second Lifers. Find out how you can have a conversation with other people in Second Life so you can make new friends and find out about other places you haven't been to yet. Besides chatting you can also wave, dance and do any number of gestures.