Ditching Asphalt: The Epic Rural Living Meetup In 2025

If city life is starting to feel like an endless loop on a crowded hamster wheel, mark your calendar. From August 21-24, 2025, the Newcomers’ Gathering (Gyüttment Találkozó)—the annual get-together for Hungary’s rural newcomers and eco-conscious dreamers—lands at Manas Garden in Lengyeltóti. Expect more than just workshops and muddy boots—this is where urban escapees and newly rural souls swap wisdom, share anxieties, and celebrate a lifestyle that’s less about late-night traffic and more about homegrown basil.

A New Home for a Growing Community

This year brings a fresh venue: Manas Garden in Rágniczapuszta, where a new rural community is just beginning to sprout. It’s not only a meeting but a collaboration. Organizers and attendees will make tangible contributions—think community-building projects, eco-structures, and even new facilities that benefit the host site long after the festival ends. This spirit echoes a core truth many participants have learned: living rural is hard alone, but transformative in community.

Not a Festival—A Knowledge Exchange

The Newcomers’ Gathering (Gyüttment) isn’t a festival in the classic sense; it’s a fully immersive, hands-on learning retreat under open skies. Parallel programs run across themed zones—Community Courtyard, Builders’ Square, Farmers’ Field, Healing Hub, Inner Paths, Children’s Meadow, and even an International Yard. With more than a hundred programs over four days, you might learn to build a straw bale wall, ferment wild foods, debate energy self-reliance, or simply share stories by the campfire.

Workshops cover everything from ecological construction to natural healing, food preservation, and rural business creation. The Crafts Courtyard features a lively market of local products and hands-on demonstrations: try your hand at weaving, pottery, or herbal teas. Evenings are for acoustic music, community dancing, and open-fire gatherings—all blissfully free of booming PA systems.

Zero Waste, Maximum Impact

This year marks the 10th birthday of the Newcomers’ Gathering (Gyüttment), and the event is doubling down on its “zero waste” ethos. There aren’t even trash cans on site—what you bring in, you take home unless it can be composted. Everyone is expected to bring their own plates, cutlery, cups, and water bottles. All washing and hygiene products must be biodegradable. Food? Locally sourced, made onsite, and served with minimal packaging—good news for both your carbon footprint and your taste buds.

From City Anxiety to Rural Confidence

Returning attendees swear the event melts modern tension: climate anxiety, existential dread, and urban burnout all seem to fade among the hay bales. More than a meetup, it’s four days of exploring an alternative social model based on nature, togetherness, and freedom from consumerist values. Here, people measure “wealth” in grape varietals, build homes out of mud and laughter, and see stinging nettles as dinner, not weeds.

For rural dreamers—those still packing up city apartments, already on the land, or just daydreaming—the Newcomers’ Gathering (Gyüttment) offers an opportunity to plan the next stage, together. The main theme this year is “Awakening Will for Action,” chosen after last year’s inspiring fireside chat. The message is clear: thinking about the future isn’t enough. Real change comes from collective action, shared learning, and not being afraid to get your hands dirty—literally.

The 2025 Program

The event unites everyone from permaculture pioneers to zero-waste chefs and natural building experts. Themed program spaces include:

• Farmers’ Field: farm basics for an eco-conscious life
• Builders’ Square: hands-on natural building techniques
• Community Courtyard: how to kickstart communities
• Healing Hub: natural therapies and wellbeing
• Inner Paths: mental resilience and self-discovery
• Children’s Meadow: creative play and alternative education
• Sustaining Food Court: everything about growing, cooking, and preserving food naturally
• Marketplace: workshops and local handmade goods

Evenings bring music, live acoustic sets, storytelling, and laughter around the fire. No tickets required for entry—instead, all members of the AllGoTogether Association (Mindenegyüttmegy Egyesület) get four days of access, daily meals, and extra perks (for about the price of a Netflix annual subscription).

Meet the Faces of Rural Reinvention

Expect to swap tips with Hungary’s top eco-educators, rural innovators, and the original “bush pioneers” who’ve already left city life behind. Topics cover landscape stewardship, alternative education, communal living, permaculture, and honest stories from those who traded traffic jams for tractor repairs.

You’ll also meet plenty of like-minded people still figuring out how to make the leap. The Newcomers’ Gathering (Gyüttment) is as much about forging new friendships as it is about gaining practical skills. The event builds networks of knowledge, local culture, and the genuine joy of discovering, together, how to finally put down roots somewhere that feels right—not just sustainable, but truly happy.

Newcomers’ Gathering (Gyüttment Találkozó) 2025
August 21-24, Manas Garden, Lengyeltóti

Whoever you are—muddy-booted pro, anxious dreamer, or just a little curious—bring your cup, your questions, and maybe leave your skepticism at home. The asphalt will still be there when you get back. But you might not want it anymore.

2025, adminboss