If you're looking to take that next step in expanding your development/design knowledge outside of your local area, you might consider attending one of the many conferences out there on a wide range of topics. Finding them may not be the easiest thing, though, so Smashing Magazine has posted this huge list of conferences yet to come in 2010.
Using the contents of [last year's] list along with some other sources, we've compiled a list of web design and development-related conferences and events that will be taking place in the next six to eight months. As always, there is no way for us to be able to include every possible event here, but we'll be glad to update the list if you provide a comment to an upcoming event that you feel would be of interest to graphic designers or web developers.
The list is huge but they have it broken up into monthly chunks to make it a bit easier to digest with events like:
