[Are academic conferences worth attending?]

I know that the general consensus is that academic conferences are a great way to gain experience of academia (and to strengthen your resume), but my question is: if the conference is abroad, and thus an expense of a couple thousand dollars, how can you be sure it's a worthwhile investment? To be more specific, I recently submitted an abstract to an interdisciplinary (that is, not exclusively literary) conference called "Making Sense of Suffering," run by "Inter-Disciplinary.Net"); I was invited to attend, but I'm hesitant to do so because it's in the Czech Republic. Will presenting there, and later publishing my paper in the book the conference releases, really make me a more attractive applicant to doctoral programs? Anyway, if anyone knows about this Inter-Disciplinary.Net group, I'd be grateful to get any further info on them--I've researched, but found little.

I was glad to see this post because I too had a paper accepted for this same conference and am also feeling some qualms due to the relative obscurity of the research community and the expense, although I would only have to fly from Ireland. I spoke to my soon-to-be supervisor about it and he said it would probably be worth it because of the experience of presenting as well as the motivational value of meeting others with shared interests. In my discipline, I haven't come across anyone who takes seriously the topic of suffering so that would be valuable for me. He also reassured me that it's not a scam! Have you made up your mind yet?

[Are academic conferences worth attending?]

I know that the general consensus is that academic conferences are a great way to gain experience of academia (and to strengthen your resume), but my question is: if the conference is abroad, and thus an expense of a couple thousand dollars, how can you be sure it's a worthwhile investment? To be more specific, I recently submitted an abstract to an interdisciplinary (that is, not exclusively literary) conference called "Making Sense of Suffering," run by "Inter-Disciplinary.Net"); I was invited to attend, but I'm hesitant to do so because it's in the Czech Republic. Will presenting there, and later publishing my paper in the book the conference releases, really make me a more attractive applicant to doctoral programs? Anyway, if anyone knows about this Inter-Disciplinary.Net group, I'd be grateful to get any further info on them--I've researched, but found little.