Somewhere around hour six of a road trip, my brother-in-law asked the question that has consumed my family for three years: if it all went down, which vacation town do we drive to? We have argued about this at four different resorts. A waiter in Branson contributed a map on a napkin. This article is the definitive settlement of that argument, and yes, I'm prepared to defend it.
How Do You Score a Town for the Apocalypse?
You score it on four factors: defensibility (natural barriers, chokepoints), food reserves (buffets per capita is a real metric here), escape routes (roads, water, ridgelines), and tourist density (every visitor is a future problem, statistically speaking). I weighted buffets heavily becuase canned goods run out but a town built to feed 40,000 people a day has warehouses, walk-ins, and grease you can trade. This is deeply serious research conducted entirely on vacation, which is the only correct venue for it.
The Rankings, Least to Most Survivable
8. Orlando — Survivability Quotient: 2.1
I love Orlando, I'm there twice a year, but let's be honest: it's flat, it's sprawling, there's a hundred thousand hotel rooms and every one of them is a door you have to check. The highway network that makes it a perfect $49-59 vacation town becomes a delivery system for trouble. Counterpoint: infinite pool water and enough turkey legs in cold storage to last a decade. Still. The density math is brutal, their just too many of us there.
7. Myrtle Beach — Survivability Quotient: 3.4
Sixty miles of open beach sounds like an escape route untill you realize it's also sixty miles of unguardable border. The condo towers of Myrtle Beach are decent vertical fortresses — knock out one stairwell and a 20th-floor unit is very defensible — but resupply means going DOWN, and down is where the problems are. Points awarded for the shrimp reserves and a truly heroic number of pancake houses.
6. Cancun — Survivability Quotient: 4.8
The all-inclusive resort as survival compound: walls, gates, generators, months of food, a swim-up bar that converts to a water reserve. Genuinely strong. The problem is the hotel zone sits on a narrow strip with limited exits, so your either committed to the compound life or you're not. Should of ranked higher purely on food logistics — those buffets feed thousands daily — but the geography is a one-way door.
5. Las Vegas — Survivability Quotient: 5.5
Hear me out: casinos are windowless bunkers with industrial kitchens, security infrastructure, and enough canned goods below the Strip to feed a small nation. Early game, Vegas is elite. Long game, the desert asks one question — water — and the fountains only buy you so much time. High ceiling, hard floor, very Vegas.
4. Branson — Survivability Quotient: 6.9
Ozark terrain, winding approach roads, a population with practical skills, and dozens of theaters that are basically windowless concrete arks with commercial kitchens. Branson also has a fleet of duck boats, which means amphibious escape onto Table Rock Lake. Nobody is following you onto the lake. The lake is yours.
3. Williamsburg — Survivability Quotient: 7.6
The sleeper pick. Williamsburg contains an entire district of people who professionally practice pre-industrial survival: blacksmiths, coopers, candle makers, farmers, and reenactors with working muskets. When the grid goes, everyone else is learning; these folks are simply continuing their shift. There's also a literal defensive fort one town over. The guage by which I measure preparedness is 'who changes least,' and Williamsburg barely changes at all.
2. Pigeon Forge — Survivability Quotient: 8.4
Foothills chokepoints, a legendary concentration of cabin housing with wood stoves and well water, and — critically — moonshine distilleries, which produce fuel, antiseptic, and the region's most stable trade currency in one facility. The parkway is a defensible corridor with mountains on both flanks. Docked one point for the number of go-kart tracks, which serve no survival function but will absolutely be used anyway.
1. Gatlinburg — Survivability Quotient: 9.3
One main road in, mountains on three sides, a national park as your backyard pantry, trout in the streams, black bears as an unpaid perimeter deterrent, and a ski lift that converts to high-ground evacuation. Gatlinburg is a natural fortress that happens to sell fudge. Close the Spur, hold the bypass, and the town is a walled kingdom with pancakes. It was never close, my brother-in-law owes me a steak dinner.
One road in. Mountains on three sides. Fudge.
What Actually Makes a Town Defensible?
Chokepoints beat walls, elevation beats both, and reliable water beats everything — a town with one road in and a river through it starts the scenario at a massive advantage. The full scoreboard:
| Town | Defensibility | Food Reserves | Escape Routes | SQ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gatlinburg | 9.5 | 8.0 | 8.5 | 9.3 |
| Pigeon Forge | 8.5 | 8.5 | 7.5 | 8.4 |
| Williamsburg | 7.0 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 7.6 |
| Branson | 7.5 | 7.0 | 8.0 | 6.9 |
| Las Vegas | 8.0 | 9.0 | 3.0 | 5.5 |
| Orlando | 2.0 | 9.5 | 6.0 | 2.1 |
The Real Takeaway
Obviously — legally, spiritually — this is entertainment, and no zombies were consulted. But the argument itself is the best road trip game ever invented, and there's something clarifying about looking at a vacation town and asking what it's really made of. The answer, in every case on this list, is: buffets, kind people, and more infrastructure than you'd guess. Browse all our destinations, pick your fortress, and go argue about it at a pool. That's what the pool is for.