Crystal blue water, imposing stone temples, and endless beaches paint the coastline of Tulum, Mexico. This post-classic Mayan site is a modern-day tourist destination where visitors can experience a part of the idyllic lifestyle of long ago. 

Tulum also serves as the dream site of archeologists piecing together the past as each discovered artifact reveals more secrets. However, one aspect of this site has always been puzzling: The Mayas eventually disappeared, yet, according to records, right before their end they started building walls around their temples for the first time. And no one quite knows why they did so. Maybe a newfound tradition? Maybe warfare with an ally they had a falling out with? But there’s another theory that I believe; it was because of viruses. 

Strange people come to your land and suddenly, for no perceptible reason, thousands get the symptoms of evil spirits. Heat, pain, death. In sheer terror, what else could they do but desperately erect walls, because walls keep out the dangerous enemies that cause death? Obviously, it didn’t work, and in hindsight, it seems silly. But we are left with monuments attesting to this feeling of terror. And I don’t think we ever stopped creating monuments to terror, especially now.

Recently, there has been a Doom Boom as the market for personal bunkers has exploded with customers “preparing for the end times.” Throughout the past century, the United States government has constructed tens of thousands of governmental and military bunkers around the world. However, many of the massive, underground, concrete structures are relics of previous conflicts extending back to WWII and have been sitting empty for decades.

So, some especially entrepreneurial figures have seized upon the opportunity and commercialized surviving the apocalypse. 

Drive out to the middle of Kansas, enter through the massive blast doors, and you will be at Survival Condo, one of the world’s most high-class bunker complexes. In 2008, Larry Hall purchased this vertical nuclear missile silo. Initially, it was flooded with decades of agricultural runoff, but after pumping it out and 20 million dollars later Hall achieved every doomsdayer’s dream.

The facility contains a shooting range, decontamination rooms, three armories, volcanic ash remover, reserve osmosis water filter, and a remote-controlled .223 rifle with an automatic sentry mode mounted on the top of the facility to defend the bunker. It also boasts at least two armored vehicles including a Pit-Bull VX tactical truck (commonly used by SWAT teams).