The Startup Workaway villa.

"So, an update," writes Nick Tommarello, organizer of the tropical Startup Workaway, the latest twist in the hackathon craze, in which hackers will gather at a vacation house in Costa Rica for 10 days of coding and business development. "We ended up with 120 applicants--quite a lot of work to go through!" Mr. Tommarello, who lives in Boston, said. "We ended up upgrading the villa. I booked a team of chefs to cook up three meals a day. And I'm in the midst of organizing some scuba diving, kayaking, and sloth befriending excursions."

Eighteen hackers are in the final group, which will head out next week to the Jade House, a hillside villa studded with turquoise pools and decks overlooking the Pacific in Escaleras, Costa Rica. Twelve are coders; six are non-technical. Two are from funded start-ups.

The hackers are from Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Israel and Germany--none from New York, where hackers at the epic TechCrunch hackathon were just treated to luxuries more in the hackathon tradition, namely pizza and airbeds.

Despite the island distractions, the Startup Workaway founders are scheduling eight hours a day for work. They'll be updating their blog with photos and video.

"Our next one is likely to be in Bali in December," Mr. Tommarello said.