Hi everyone, I’d like to float the Idea of a low cost immersive coding retreat for FCCers.
But first I’ll introduce myself. I’m new to FCC and I’m really enjoying the experience. I never thought coding could interest me and I discovered the joy of coding by chance. When I updated my iPad to ios10 I saw this Swift Paygrounds app and because I was bored I decided to have a play and became hooked right away. I’ve always loved puzzles and the coding problems are all like puzzles to me. So I discovered a new passion which has led me to FCC.
I’m Australian and I’ve been traveling around Europe. Now I want to stop and focus my energies into learning code, but as much as I enjoy coding the experience has been solitary which sometimes brings frustration.
I’m in Lviv, Ukraine now, a beautiful and cultured city with activities that is also amazingly cheap. I think I can organize a retreat here from as little as €5 a day including accommodation in a nice hostel.
Anyone can take participate for as little as a week up to three months. Do you think a community in a fresh environment would help motivate, support and inspire you?
What do you think? Would it help you?
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Welcome to freeCodeCamp! Good to hear you’re getting some value in it. There’s already probably a “retreat”-like meetings where you’re traveling. Please check out the city study groups around the world: freeCodeCamp City Based Local Groups. Happy coding!
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Hi Eric, thanks for replying! yes, I’m aware of local groups and their occasional meet ups. I suspect you misunderstand what I mean by ‘immersive coding retreat’. Maybe I should have explained it more clearly.
AS I envision it an immersive coding retreat will be be like a coding bootcamp, but free! 
It’ll be a place where people can go and immerse themselves in code. Where everything will be about code, they will eat, sleep and breath code morning to night 7days a week the entire time they are at the retreat with a focused community of motivated and supportive coders and learners.
It’ll be peer led and self guided using online and other resources like FCC. People could work quietly and individually, in pairs or groups. I also see it as a great place for people to come together and work on group projects without the distractions of home. I know there are similar retreats in London, New York and the San Francisco, but acceptance is incredibly competitive, exclusive and age discriminatory. Oh and not everyone can afford to fly to and live in those cities for over three months without an income or support.
There are so many really affordable and beautiful places in Eastern Europe like Ukraine and the Balkans that will be perfect for this.
All I need is for a couple of interested and motivated people to join me and I think we can build an amazing new motivating and inspiring community for free code campers.
Maybe it’s just a dream, but I think if it can help me it could help so many others
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Hey, I just found this thread and was searching for what you described. If you ever find yourself in Silicon Valley, I know a place where it could probably be done. It’s a non-profit called Hacker Dojo. There’s a monthly membership fee of $125, but it’s a 24 / 7 co-working, coding, and maker space in the heart of Silicon Valley–would be perfect.
I’d start it myself, but someone who has at least finished FCC would be ideal.