On December 30th Kendra and Ben are planning to go into a silent retreat for three years, three months, and three days.  This plan is a culmination of the course of study that they have undertaken for the last five years.    In accordance with the truth that all things are entirely dependent upon the way that we experience them, Kendra and Ben have chosen to make the maximum effort available to them in order to make the sort of mental change necessary to be able to provoke overt change in the outside world we all share.  It is their intent to take the teachings that have been given them by their many great teachers and go about the hard-won task of actually trying to gain the spiritual realizations that their teachers have pointed them towards all along.  It is their belief that this is the path that will allow them to gain the greatest capacity to help the greatest number of people in the world when they come out of retreat.

Retreat is not a break.  It is not a vacation.  It is a slow systematic and often painful method of exacting powerful change in the mind in shortest amount of time available.

The mind is an unruly place, a wild beast of sorts; difficult to tame.  As long as the mind has the option to occupy itself with outer stimulus it will continuously strive to do so, in avoidance of the more subtle world inside.  Retreat, seclusion, silence, routine, repetition, this is a method to starve the mind of it's tireless gluttony for the short-term, the gross.
After extended effort in austere seclusion the mind begins to give up on it's vain efforts to engage outside itself and finally begin to turn inwards.  Finally the real work can begin.  Finally we can lead the mind into an ever-deepening exploration of its own nature and shape it ever-more firmly into a tireless machine which gains it fuel from the motivation to serve all.

When you've grasped as well as I the essential points
Of each of the three principal paths explained,
Then go into isolation, my son, make mighty
Efforts, and quickly win your ultimate wish.
 - Je Tsongkhapa The Three Principle Paths

From the very beginning we must encourage these fledgling bodhisattvas  to recite and memorize the teachings.  After they have learned many 
things, then we should encourage them to dwell in isolation.  Once they have reached an intense state of solitude, then we should insist that they 
become a Teacher. 
 - Shakyamuni Buddha The Chapter Explaining Ten Steps for Developing Bodhisattvas

Find a place to practice which is both conducive to your own frame of mind and quite isolated - a good place with good friends.
 - Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen The Path to Bliss

And now for three years
In isolation, in the desert
 Here in America, 
In a small Mongolian yurt, 
I have stayed together 
In the great retreat, in the proper way, 
With a Lady, who is an emanation 
Of the Angel of Diamond, a Messenger; 
And I’ve undertaken the hardships needed 
To try to complete the two stages 
Of the secret teachings.
 - Geshe Michael Roach (The Open Letter)