Site 4: The world’s weirdest hotel
The economic rise of dark tourism is set to reach $43.5 billion by 2031. From day trips to nuclear disaster zones to the haunted abodes of old serial killers, millions around the world are shunning a week of sun and relaxation in Spain in favour of something a little more spooky, shocking, or downright strange. The jury is out regarding the whys and wherefores, with experts citing a wide range of reasons.
Naturally, typical forces like growing accessibility, the age-old angle of the latest ‘trend’, desensitization to normal travel and myriad other normal are helping to drive the rise. However, one personal theory that I think might be behind the dark tourism craze is a sense of extreme escapism at a time when we are more ‘on’ than ever. By ‘on’ I mean in some way working rather than truly relaxing.
Even when we’re on holiday in Spain, it’s not hard to be sucked into your emails no thanks to an errand notification or find yourself worrying about paying council tax as you sit poolside, knowing you could pay it with your phone. We’re so permanently connected to work and other responsibilities that switching off can be tricky.
However, it is a lot easier to forget the world as you slumber in Site 4. Above you is a 150-foot staircase to a pair of 45-tonne doors. Beyond them is the New Mexico desert. Yes, if you find yourself in Site 4, you find yourself in a decommissioned intercontinental ballistic weapons silo in Roswell. Now, an Airbnb and a dark tourism hotspot, sweetened by the promise that when you are finally above ground, you might just witness a UFO.
The warheads that once shared your bed were 300 times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima. When in the belly of such a beast, reconciling the insanity of such a thought in a refurbished bunker run by an ordinary entrepreneur from New Mexico, it can be quite easy to forget all about the accounts deadline that awaits your return. It can be hard to think about anything at all.
Even the insane bombardment of UFO paraphernalia that blights the drive from Roswell to Site 4, around 30 miles away, is likely to be forgotten. What isn’t likely to leave you is thoughts of how quite a plush, bohemian kitchenette could possibly have been installed deep beneath the desert in an old military control room simply to be rented out for those in search of a surreal escape.
Back in the 1970s, the site of this strange Airbnb was so top secret its existence couldn’t be uncovered in print. Now, only a few decades later, you can check the rates in a couple of clicks and find yourself making scrambled eggs a few yards away from where a destroyer of civilisations once stood. Council tax, deadlines, bickering relatives and anything else that was weighing on you before your trip suddenly seem pretty petty when faced with such a startling situation.
Perhaps even more startling is the fact that a whole host of such places have started popping up in the New Mexico desert. And such surrealness isn’t cheap. It can cost you $1,000 per night at peak times, and there’s also the constant chatter about the end times to take in. But what else did you expect when you booked into the world’s weirdest hotel?
