Best All-Inclusive Resorts for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Rosarita Beach Hotel as seen in Fear the Walking Dead
amc.com

As if there weren’t enough things to worry about these days, we also have to live with the looming threat of a zombie apocalypse. On the bright side, choosing an appropriate holiday could actually save your life…

If you’ve stuck with AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead for long enough, you’ll have seen them holed up at the Rosarito Beach Hotel — a real place, by the way (see photo above) — in Baja California, Mexico. It wasn’t a bad choice, but if you’re going to flee south to Mexico or the Caribbean to wait out the zombie apocalypse, you might as well pick something a little more practical and a lot more comfortable. And here’s how…

Choose a resort away from large urban areas (and other resorts)…

Stay away from zombie cities.
amc.com

Unless you’re some kind of zombie-slaying hero intent on a slow decline into bloodlust, guilt and poor leadership decisions (yeah, that’s you, Rick), you’ll ideally want to be riding away from city centers rather than into them.

Avoiding large urban areas is pretty much Rule Number One for not getting eaten by a zombie. Most all-inclusive resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean abide by that rule to a certain extent. But some of them are located far too close to other popular resorts, which creates a distinct set of problems. Let’s take the famous Seven Mile Beach in Negril, Jamaica, as an example. It’s a great place — beautiful beaches, plenty of excellent resorts nearby like The Caves, Couples Swept Away and Beaches Negril — but, during high season especially, that means a lot of people, and therefore a lot of zombies, on a seven-mile stretch of open sand.

Seriously, once the apocalypse kicks in on Seven Mile Beach you’ll have hordes of fast-moving zombie kids pouring in from the Kool Runnings Waterpark up the road, and horny, drunk, clothing-optional zombies stumbling out of the Hedonism II Resort to the north. Does that sound like fun? No, it doesn’t, so pick a resort that exists in relative isolation.

And that leads us to our second important consideration…

….with a defensive location…

Jumby Bay Island
rosewoodhotels.com

Most resorts provide some degree of protection, kind of like the shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead (and, just like that shopping mall, all-inclusive resorts could be used as metaphors for human consumerism, but we’ll skip that part for now).

Fences and walls make for good temporary obstructions, but they are no substitute for natural barriers. Ideally, your defensive position will be surrounded by steep hills, mountains or water (lava would be fantastic, but that’s probably asking too much). Scientists have yet to confirm whether the undead sink or float; it probably depends on their degree of decomposition and what they’re wearing i.e. a fresh zombie wearing a new pair of Nike Air Max would probably float, albeit feet-up. But we know for sure that zombies can’t swim. Islands, therefore, are excellent defensive locations.

Private islands are even better, as you won’t have zombies pouring in from nearby towns or other resorts. Take Jumby Bay, an all-inclusive Rosewood Resort in Antigua. Located on its own private island (see photo above), Jumby Bay is reachable only by boat. “With no hint of urban intrusions, and no indigenous population,” says the Jumby Bay website, “this privately owned hideaway has remained largely unchanged for centuries.” Sounds perfect, right? Even better, it’s only a six-minute boat ride from the island to the coast of Antigua, which is good for supply runs to the mainland (for medicine, comic books, Twinkies etc.). Sure, you’ll have to sweep the beaches to crowbar an occasional floater, but otherwise you should be sitting pretty.

…near food and fresh water…

Hermitage Bay Resort in Antigua
hermitagebay.com

Access to fresh drinking water is vital. Rivers, springs, freshwater lagoons — these are all going to keep you alive. If you find yourself in a resort on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula (the Sandos Caracol Eco Resort in Playa del Carmen, for example), you might even find a cenote, a type of natural well or sinkhole that could contain a never-ending supply of pristine drinking water.

As for food, once the resort’s own supplies run out, things are gonna get real, and fast. Apart from going on dangerous supply runs to towns and cities, your only other long-term option is to become self-sufficient (and no, cannibalism does not count, so keep your hands off the other guests). Natural fish stocks will thrive once most of the world’s population has been extinguished, so choose a resort with good fishing, either from the beach or deep sea fishing from a boat.

You’ll also need to grow some crops. This is easier said than done, so it’s best to choose a resort that already has an established garden. Hermitage Bay (pictured above) on the west coast of Antigua fits the bill: it’s secluded and has its own organic kitchen garden with peppers, tomatoes, spinach, eggplant, okra, cucumbers, callaloo and a whole bunch of different herbs. The resort also has its own organic gardener, Kempton, so try to keep that guy alive.

…with access to weapons…

Shooting at Casa de Campo
casadecampo.com.do

No matter how good your defensive position, at some point you’ll need to bust some zombie heads. Sure, you can improvise with kitchen knives and shovels and rolling pins, but why settle for low-grade domestic tools? Treat yourself to an upgrade and find a resort with a cache of classic zombie-slaying weapons.

Is there an archery range for the kids? Great, let’s go all Robin Hood on the walking dead. Harpoons at the resort’s marina? Sweet. Baseball bats at the batting cage? Perfect… but maybe we shouldn’t talk about baseball bats, right, Lucille? That memory is still way too fresh.

Then there are resorts like Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. Not only does Casa de Campo have great fishing, it also has a shooting center (see photo above), and that means: shotguns, the ultimate zombie-killing weapons. Guests at Casa de Campo also receive their own personal golf carts for cruising around the resort. Just imagine it: shotgun-wielding golf-cart cavalry for the ultimate in zombie defense. Awesome.

… and access to wine

Curtain Bluff wine cellar
curtainbluff.com

Finally, and arguably just as importantly, you’ll want to choose a resort that has a huge — and I mean huge — supply of alcohol. After all, you’ll be sitting around fishing all day — in between bouts of violence and the need to repopulate the Earth — so you’ll want an occasional glass of wine.

With that in mind, please call your preferred resort in advance of the zombie apocalypse and ask them how much booze they have in store. Ideally, you’ll be heading to somewhere like Curtain Bluff in Antigua, home to one of the most extensive wine cellars in the Caribbean (see above), “stocked with over 400 carefully selected wines from 10 countries.” That’s about 25,000 bottles of wine, apparently, which should last, what, maybe a couple of years? Curtain Bluff is also situated in a fairly defensive position (being a bluff and all), so you should be able to drink wine on the beach in relative peace while fishing for your supper.

So the zombie apocalypse doesn’t have to be all bad, right? Especially, it would seem, if you holiday in Antigua.

What other steps would YOU take to survive a zombie apocalypse? Share your tips!

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About Tony Dunnell 19 Articles
Tony Dunnell is a full-time writer based in the high jungle of Peru, from where he continues to explore Peru’s fascinating culture and varied landscapes, which are sometimes a little blurry due to too much pisco or Peruvian craft beer. You can read more about Peru at his website, New Peruvian.
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