Deep in the Utah desert, a Star Wars-themed resort transports visitors to another world

Beryl • Atop a dried-up lakebed in the middle of nowhere and seemingly light-years from everywhere, this southern Utah sci-fi retreat in the remote desert 50 miles west of Cedar City would not seem to hold much allure.

But since its opening in a barren and sagebrush-dotted basin last March, its otherworldly vibe has turned it into a utopian getaway that has emerged as a tourist destination of choice rather than a place of last resort, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Billed as a blend between “Star Wars,” “Mad Max” and “Dune” movies and a glamping-style resort, Outpost X has garnered millions of views on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media platforms. It has also captured the popular imagination, luring scores of families, glampers, filmmakers, movie buffs, and solitude seekers to the site from across the country and as far away as France and Germany.

Rick Egan // The Salt Lake Tribune

Seinfeld and Star Wars

As alien as Outpost X is, it shares one important concept with Seinfeld, the earthly hit ’90s television sitcom famously touted as “a show about nothing.”

“We want guests to experience nothingness, to feel like you have the opportunity to be on a different planet without being on a different planet,” said John Lawson, who manages the 240-acre property. “We want guests there to reconnect with themselves or whomever they are with, forge new relationships, and get away from their everyday life.”

Outpost X is the brainchild of Travis Chambers, who conjured up the idea while working as a social media manager for 20th Century Fox and other film industry jobs, building $100,000 disposable film sets that were summarily scrapped as soon as filming was over.

“I thought it would be really cool to build a film set that people could stay in overnight,” said Chambers, who is now based in Boise, Idaho. “I wanted to build movies that people could immerse themselves in … and escape the city and modern life.”

The sale of his ad agency for millions of dollars in September 2021 put that dream within reach. After traveling with his wife, Chelsea, and their three children and staying in off-the-beaten-path adventure hotels in 30 foreign countries, Chambers bought the land for Outpost X for about $110,000.

To get the resort off the drawing board and onto the ground, Chambers turned to crowdfunding, raising more than $900,000 from investors in exchange for stays of up to seven nights once the project was completed. Unable to find a builder during the post-COVID-19 construction boom, Chambers teamed up with various contractors and bootstrapped the project.

Construction started in 2022, and Outpost X, which can accommodate up to 35 people, has enjoyed about 90% occupancy ever since opening. The resort’s living quarters consist of three upscale, cave-like dwellings similar to Luke Skywalker’s abode in the desert world of Tattooine in “Star Wars.” It also features four smaller and less expensive futuresque zen glass domes ideal for stargazing in an area devoid of light pollution.

Rick Egan // The Salt Lake Tribune

Welcome to the Apocalypse

Although the resort is built on the concept of nothingness, it is a mistake to assume there is nothing to do. Even before guests arrive at the post-apocalyptic-style property, they are sent podcasts for a front-end education on the backstory of Namaajin, a planet destroyed during a cosmic upheaval that they will be asked to resettle as part of their stay.

Guests’ immersive experience continues upon their arrival as they hop aboard one of five electric “Star Wars”-style landspeeders—essentially modified golf carts—to cruise the site and stop at 20 interactive stations to glean more about the planet, its checkered history, and its colorful characters.

Nightly rates range from $320 to $475. Visitors who want to take over the whole property can do so for $5,000 a night.

For an extra $20 during their stay, guests can dress up as one of 20 prominent Namaajin denizens, including an eco-priestess, geophysicist, and mercenary. The only limit to how far guests can take their role-playing is their imagination.

Aiding that imagination is an array of amenities. There’s the Kaan Lounge, which resembles an avant-garde Viking longhouse or French Polynesian dwelling. It’s a lush communal hangout where guests can lounge on couches to watch movies on a drop-down screen, download an app for yoga and kickboxing tutorials, or jam on guitars, sound bowls, and drums.

Guests can further indulge their whims outside, where they can throw atlatls, fight with heavy duty foam light sabers, or climb boulders. There’s also a two-story building nearby, the downstairs of which is devoted to a game room where guests can piece together puzzles, play board games, or seat themselves at the controls of a PlayStation, which is ensconced in a replica of a spaceship cockpit.

Upstairs is the Mocktail Cantina, where guests can pay extra to access recipes and ingredients to make exotic nonalcoholic drinks. Those preferring alcoholic libations are free to bring their own. Just outside the cantina is a skydeck where visitors can take in the 360-degree views of, well, nothing, other than nearby structures, barren fields, and distant mountains.

There’s also an outside common area where guests can gather around two fire pits for conversation, communal cooking, or to throw pottery on a nearby clay wheel that they can air dry rather than use a kiln.

A nearby spa area on the other side of a walled entry has a sauna, mud baths, clay wash pits, a cold plunge pool, and hot tubs, one of which is equipped with a waterfall.

The cold plunge brings back warm memories for Lawson, who recalls seeing a coyote drinking from the pool as a couple were in the water a few feet away.

“They were actually enjoying the experience,” Lawson said, “taking pictures of the coyote as it drank.”

For his part, Chambers enjoys the experimental aircraft that soar overhead from Area 51, the clandestine government base secreted 125 miles away in the Nevada desert.

Rick Egan // The Salt Lake Tribune

The Stairway to Heaven

Out on the playa, a short distance away, is the Stairway to Heaven, where some guests meditate and others levitate drones to take aerial photos. Another oddball attraction, even by Outpost X standards, is the fully made bed located in an empty field near the cave rentals.

Staff removed the bed from a cave rental and placed it outdoors for removal after deciding it didn’t fit with the resort’s decor. Alas, the guests had other ideas.

“Guests really love the bed,” Lawson said. “We have found people sleeping in the bed and jumping or taking pictures on it, so we decided to leave it there. The hardest part of that is changing the sheets every day and chasing pillows blown away by the wind.”

All the resort’s caves and zen domes come equipped with modern amenities, including large-screen televisions, heat and air conditioning, and kitchenette and shower areas. Guests can bring and cook their own food or purchase exotically named meal packages designed by celebrity chef and influencer Cody Candelario that they can cook themselves in their rental or on a communal fire pit.

Outpost X’s cinematic mix of solitude, communal gatherings, and creative role-playing was a big draw for Las Vegas residents Dennis and Lizzie Haro, who took their two children to the resort.

“We wanted to do a quick off-grid getaway,” Lizzie Haro said while checking out the Kaan Lounge. “We enjoy doing unique stays and once stayed at a spaceship near Joshua Tree National Park. When we heard about this one, we loved the ‘Star Wars’ feel about it and decided to take our children here.”

Others find the resort equally alluring.

“We’ve had tons of Star Wars fan groups stay and film out here,” Chambers said, “like The 501st Legion, which is one of the largest of those groups.”

National Geographic and Vogue magazine photojournalists have also visited the site, and Utah videographer Devin Graham, better known by his online moniker, DevinSuperTramp, recently shot a film at the resort to promote Star Wars Outlaws, an action-adventure video game for Ubisoft and Lucasfilm Games. A large Star Wars-themed wedding, meanwhile, is slated for next spring.

To fully enjoy the Outpost X experience, resort officials urge would-be visitors to come with an open mind and let go of any preconceived expectations.

“This is not a hotel,” Chambers said. “This is an experience.”

And it’s an experience that is spreading. With the success of Outpost X, Chambers plans to expand the resort. He is also constructing an adventure resort in the jungles of Puerto Rico and shopping for land in the Rocky Mountains to open a Viking village.

“Now we have proven that this immersive and experimental concept can work,” he said. “My goal is to build about 20 of these projects over the next 10 years.”

This story was produced by The Salt Lake Tribune and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.