This is about the 4th year in a row I’ve gone to Montana on the long weekend with 4 friends for a writers’ retreat–this year we got away for 6 days. It was AWESOME! This is the best place to plan out a novel because we write morning noon and night, stopping for a break when we make lunch, go out to dinner, and to have about a half hour of social time at 10:30 PM.
You can really get ideas in your head, keep them there, manipulate them–all with no distractions. And the writerly conversations on the drive down and back and at meals are super-stimulating. There is no internet, but there IS a group of writers of whom to ask questions. I got a ton done, not only putting together a scene-by-scene outline of the next novel, but getting about 75% of my last novel edits complete. I want to submit well before my deadline, so this helps tremendously!