Any advice for a beginner buy+hold investor?

[Sam T.]

I'm in the infancy stages of the process here, and I'd love any advice you folks have to offer a young guy just trying to learn as much as possible for now. I have a career that I love that's completely unrelated to real estate, so I guess you could say I'm an aspiring passive buy and hold investor (or at least passive enough to not let my investing career interfere with my full-time line of work).

I'm focusing on paying off a lot of bad, consumer debt for the time being, and I want to take advantage of that time to learn as much as I can before I pull the trigger on my first investment property down the road.

I've looked up some investment clubs in the Atlanta and Athens areas, but it seems like it'll be difficult for me to make it out to a lot of those meetings with my work schedule (I travel a lot and am often out of town during the week). I want to just learn and become involved in the RE community as much as I can, so any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!