The small Swiss town of Gstaad, nestled in the Bernese Alps, looks like a setting ripe for a Sound of Music-inspired fairytale. It's surrounded by green hills and snow-capped mountaintops, and lined with immaculately manicured wooden chalets dripping with pink geraniums.

I arrive via train in late September, after the summertime tennis and polo players have left, but before there's enough powder for royal skiers to hit the slopes. It's a relatively quiet time of year in this posh resort town. A moment of solitude alongside the Saane river is just as likely to be disrupted by cowbells as a private jet gliding into the valley.

This is where longevity seekers come each fall for an intimate conference connecting investors to entrepreneurs and scientists. Some are trying red light therapy, while others are toting Blueprint macadamia paste in their pockets as a pre-lunch snack.

Some wear continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) to monitor ketosis, or avoid the potatoes at dinner hoping to keep their blood sugar levels steady.

Organized by Swiss longevity investment firm Maximon for the past five years, the Longevity Investors Conference in Gstaad caters to a rather narrow set of investors, people who are focused either on improving aging or chasing immortality.

"We don't share the names, but we already had quite a few billionaires and triple millionaires in St. Moritz attending our events," conference cofounder Marc Bernegger told Longevity.Technology in 2020, before the first LIC.

Doctors from the most influential longevity clinics worldwide, from Singapore to Tel Aviv, are here. There are scientists who've spent their entire careers shepherding forward this relatively backwater corner of biology. And then there's the famed tech biohacker Bryan Johnson, who makes a brief video appearance.

People are here to chat and connect more than anything. The sessions are short, with most panels and presentations lasting no more than 20 minutes. More time at the conference is devoted to exchanging ideas and getting to know all 130 investors, founders, and researchers who've come to the event, a two-and-a-half day affair where ticket prices start above $4,000.

Investment is flowing into early-stage longevity companies that are bringing tests and products to market.

The telomere-measuring company Beyond Genomix, which is positioning itself for both longevity and reproductive health measurements, was here last year pitching itself as a startup. It's back as a sponsor. So is Luminousred — a red light company that installs bright, warm lights into the bathrooms and bedrooms of longevity-seekers hoping to make their skin more youthful and plump, reduce inflammation, or improve the health of their cells.

There are some funders and entrepreneurs here chasing far-out investments. Alex Colville from the pioneering longevity venture capital firm Age1 in San Francisco says he wouldn't rule out funding a brain replacement startup, if only he could find one. Tomorrow.Bio founder Emil Kendziorra tells the crowd about his new cryopreservation company (it's not body freezing, he insists. Call it vitrification.)

But by and large, there's more excitement for the comparatively "easy" longevity stuff being pitched to investors here from clinics, test makers, supplement creators, and skincare brands, rather than the biotech that will take years of clinical development.

L'Oréal's venture capital firm Bold is here chatting about investment into new compounds for improved skin aging. Conference cofounder Tobias Reichmuth (an environmental sustainability and cryptocurrency investor as well as one of the first hosts of the Swiss version of "Shark Tank") announced his longevity-forward "Blue Cruise" icebreaker superyacht will set sail as early as January 2025.

Equipped with Starlink satellite internet, the boat is designed for "floating coworking." It's staffed with a Michelin-starred chef and will head to remote corners of the world including Easter Island (where rapamycin was discovered) and Antarctica, as well as longevity "Blue Zones" like Sardinia, Italy and Okinawa, Japan.

Being here in such a relaxed setting with time for questions and conversation, I was surprised to find myself more willing than usual to give some of the longevity hacks on offer a shot. Before dinner one night, I tried a supplement that included berberine, the plant compound many TikTokers call nature's Ozempic (it's not really like Ozempic, but it does seem to help stabilize blood sugar when taken before a meal.) 'Why not,' I thought, as my tablemates popped a few capsules each.

When I got home, I drank a chalky collagen supplement sample for the first time. (Verdict: Yuck. No thanks).

Longevity investments might not have the same returns as Nvidia stock these days, but Reichmuth says his Maximon longevity fund still expects, on average, an 8% return overall.

Marginal investments in ideas like skin rejuvenation today might reveal a new way to go after aging elsewhere in the body tomorrow. One example of this: Immunology and AI expert David Furman is here discussing his smartphone-enabled "Healthy Selfie" which is designed to measure how well your organs are aging by looking at your face. It could be a reality as early as 2025.

After the conference ended, as I took the train into Zurich, watching the world go by out of a big picture window alongside a couple of VC investors who'd attended, it felt like I was on a three-hour tour back to planet reality. Far away from the quaint vacation spot of Julie Andrews, Madonna, and Valentino, there were no more secret garages built into the hillsides, sturdy enough to descend into vast multi-floor caverns with spas and home theaters.

I felt like I'd been transported back into real life. Amid the swirling crowd of travelers rushing off to their various destinations, I felt mortal again.