Outpost X - Star Wars, Mad Max, and a Pottery Wheel: Utah's Strangest Resort

There is a bed in the middle of the desert. Not near a building, not on a porch - just a fully made queen bed, sitting on a cracked salt flat under the Utah sky, catching wind-blown pillows and the occasional napping stranger. It was supposed to be removed. Staff thought it clashed with the vibe. But people kept lying down on it, jumping on it, photographing it, and so it stayed. That bed tells you most of what you need to know about Outpost X.

Located roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Cedar City in the unincorporated desert town of Beryl, Utah, this 100-acre glamping property sits on what was once a dried lakebed - a flat, silent expanse of cracked earth ringed by stone mountain ranges. Solar panels dot the outbuildings. Custom-built electric sand cruisers prowl the playa. Cave dwellings rise from the scorched ground like something from a Tatooine backlot. A pottery wheel sits near the spa. Someone may be throwing a spear nearby. This is not a normal hotel.

How a Social Media Mogul Built a Desert Planet

The origin of Outpost X is almost as strange as the place itself. Travis Chambers, formerly a social media strategist for 20th Century Fox, spent years traveling with his family to unconventional adventure hotels across 30 countries. Somewhere along the way, he became fixated on a question: what if you could sleep inside a film set?

In September 2021, Chambers sold his ad agency and used part of the proceeds to purchase the Beryl land for $110,000. He launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised over $900,000 in exchange for future stays, then broke ground in 2022 - navigating post-COVID construction delays by working directly with contractors and bootstrapping the build. Since opening in 2023, the property has reportedly run at around 90% occupancy.

The conceptual framework Chambers built around the place is elaborate. Outpost X is presented as the ruins of a fictional planet called Namaajin, destroyed by some kind of cosmic catastrophe and now being resettled by two brothers named Naa and Maa. Before arrival, you're encouraged to listen to a four-part podcast that lays out this lore.

The property has drawn an eclectic crowd: Star Wars fan organizations like the 501st Legion, photographers from National Geographic and Vogue, and Utah filmmaker Devin Graham, who shot content here for the Star Wars Outlaws video game by Ubisoft and Lucasfilm.

Emboldened by Outpost X's reception, he is now developing a jungle adventure resort in Puerto Rico and scouting land in the Rocky Mountains for a Viking village concept.

The Common Area

The communal heart of Outpost X sits between the caves and the spa - a cluster of outdoor firepits, a mocktail cantina, and the shared kitchen known as the Cantina. This is where the social experiment plays out most visibly.

There is no restaurant, no room service, and no front desk. Check-in is self-directed: you receive detailed instructions via text and a portal link before arrival, then find your unit and let yourself in. Two staff members are on the property at all times for questions or maintenance, but they're not in uniform.

For those who want a more structured meal situation, a culinary add-on can be purchased before or during your stay. The ingredients - sourced for breakfast, lunch, and dinner - are stocked in your unit's fridge before you arrive, along with recipes. You do the cooking. Options have included dishes like chicken skewers with quinoa and greens, steak and salmon with sweet potatoes, and eggs with avocado and pita.

The Cantina is stocked with stovetops, cookware, utensils, plates, bowls, and basic seasonings. It's available around the clock for anyone staying on the property. Complimentary firewood is provided for the outdoor firepits, and on clear desert nights - which is most of them - eating around the fire is the obvious move.

Kaan Lounge

The Kaan Lounge is where the Moroccan design instincts of the property are most fully expressed. Low cushioned seating, draped textiles, and warm lighting give the space an immediate familiarity. It functions as the living room of the whole resort.

The room is stocked with musical instruments - drums, guitars, singing bowls - which means impromptu sound circles are a regular occurrence. There's a painting station where you can sit down with no particular ambition and make something. A DVD collection lines one wall for anyone who wants to lean into the outer-rim atmosphere with a movie. A projector screen is set up and ready.

Adjacent to the lounge is the mocktail cantina upstairs, where a bar of syrups, flavor agents, and non-alcoholic bases lets you mix your own drinks. From the upstairs deck, the views stretch across the playa and toward the mountain ranges.

The Accommodation Options

Outpost X offers several distinct categories of lodging. At the top end are the cave dwellings - earthen structures built into or against the desert ground, each with private kitchenettes and bathrooms. The Glass Cave Villas share the cave aesthetic but incorporate large transparent panels that bring the desert landscape directly into the living space.

Zen Domes are geodesic structures with panoramic windows and stargazing potential. Viking Tents are spacious canvas tent units with beds, heaters, and heated blankets but shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. Primitive campsites are also available for those bringing their own setup.

The entire property can be reserved as a block for reunions, retreats, or group events - the full inventory runs to three cave units, five cave villas, two glass cave villas, four domes, ten Viking tents, the spa, the Kaan Lounge, and the sand cruisers.

All private units come with Starlink WiFi, air conditioning for warmer months, a heater, and a TV with internet connectivity for streaming.

Cave Villa

Approaching a Cave Villa, the first impression is geological. The structures sit low against the desert floor, their exteriors built from or clad in stone, blending into the surrounding rock formations. It's surrounded by open playa in multiple directions, mountain silhouettes on the horizon, and almost no visual evidence of the 21st century.

The kitchenette just inside the entrance is modest but functional: a stovetop, microwave, pots and pans, utensils, dishes and silverware scaled to your party size, a cutting board, a sharp knife, a can opener, a coffee maker with enough coffee and creamers for one cup per person per day. A small refrigerator handles cold storage. If you've opted into the culinary package, everything will be prepped and waiting in the fridge when you arrive.

The main sleeping area is a studio-style space with a queen bed positioned to face the desert views - floor-level windows or open sightlines depending on the unit. The Cave Villa also includes a lofted second sleeping area, accessed by ladder, with a second queen bed. This upper level has the quality of a bunk at altitude: snug, purposeful, and oddly satisfying.

The bathroom is built to feel like you're showering inside a rock formation, it features dual therapeutic waterfall showerheads - side-by-side overhead cascades set into stone walls.

Cave Lux

The Cave Lux is the larger, more configured sibling of the standard Cave Villa. Where the Villa runs on a studio principle, the Lux spreads across a more deliberate floor plan: two separate private bedrooms, a spacious open living room with a pullout couch for additional sleeping capacity, and a full private bathroom with a waterfall showerhead.

The feature that sets the Cave Lux apart from the other cave units is its bubble skylight. Set into the ceiling, it frames an oval of desert sky above the interior - useful for gauging weather, meditative at night, and genuinely beautiful on a clear morning when the blue comes through.

Glass Cave Villa

The Glass Cave Villa starts from the same earthen, stone-built premise as the standard caves but replaces solid walls with large transparent panels on the desert-facing side.

The interior is a studio configuration with a queen bed, a private bathroom with dual waterfall showerheads, and a fully equipped kitchenette. At night, with the lights low, the glass becomes a screen for stars.

Zen Dome

From the outside, the Zen Domes read as clean white geodesic spheres sitting on the desert floor - stark against the landscape. The domes are positioned with sightlines across the playa, and on clear nights the full dome surface seems to glow faintly against the sky.

The area around Beryl is certified dark-sky territory, which means no meaningful light pollution and a density of stars that's genuinely startling if you've been living in a city.

Inside, the dome is warmer and more domestic than you might expect. A king bed sits at the center of the rounded space - sleeping here, with the dome curving above you and the desert visible through the panoramic windows, is the closest the property gets to the promise of its own mythology. Heated blankets are included, with separate temperature controls on each side of the bed. On cold desert nights, this is not a small thing.

X-Spa

The spa sits at the edge of the playa, partially sheltered by a roughly 6-meter (20-foot) stone wall built to cut the desert wind - a wall that does real work given how reliably the afternoon gusts roll across the salt flat. Walk through it and the temperature and noise level both drop noticeably.

The wood-burning barrel sauna is the spa's most hands-on offering. A box beside it holds fire starters, lighters, flint and steel, a butane torch, and wood pellets. You scoop the pellets into a small door with a hand shovel and light them yourself. The sauna's slatted windows open onto the desert, giving panoramic views of the playa while you sweat.

The pools vary in temperature and intensity. The cold plunge pool completes the circuit for those inclined toward contrast therapy.

A hot tub - with a waterfall feature - is the obvious first stop, especially at sunset when the air cools and the sky shifts through orange and pink.

Sand Cruisers

No part of Outpost X has generated more curiosity - or more footage circulating online - than the sand cruisers. They are, technically, electric golf carts. A special-effects fabricator has fitted them with molded plastic bodywork, spray-painted and shaped to evoke the landspeeders from Star Wars. They do not hover. Their top speed is roughly 16 to 19 kilometers per hour (10 to 12 mph). They run on a 30-minute battery charge before needing to be plugged back in.

None of this matters. The moment you're out on the playa in one, dodging sagebrush with the mountain ranges in every direction and nothing resembling a road in sight, the experience delivers exactly what it promises. An audio tour is built into the sand cruiser experience, guiding you through the property's landmarks and lore as you drive.

Access works via a QR code on each cruiser that links to a check-in form. Once submitted, you receive a code to a lockbox containing the key. Unplug before driving, return the key to the lockbox and replug the charger when you're done. The cruisers are included with all reservations and day passes.