Published on May 16, 2025 12:20 AM GMT
A hotel room generally feels way bigger than I need when traveling:I'm really just looking for somewhere to sleep. When I first read theWikipedia pagefor capsule hotels, maybe 20y ago, this seemed like a veryreasonable approach: lots of people could sleep in a small space,without the downsides of open hostels. I recently travelled to DC forwork and found the U StreetCapsule Hotel. Seemed worth trying!
For $82 I got a capsule for a Thursday night:
Some capsules were perpendicular to the hall, which seems a bit moreawkward for getting in and out but would use the space moreefficiently:
They were really very blue. Here's a photo from the inside:
Seems like they were designed by people who didn't know or didn't carethat blue light is bad for sleep? You could turn off the light,though, so it wasn't that bad.
The thing that Iwasn't expecting, however, was the minimal sound isolation. Beforetrying one of these I had assumed that the point of a capsule insteadof bunk beds was noise isolation. While the other people in the roomdid a good job of being quiet, thin walls plus a window shade for adoor did very little to keep out noise. Something more like ahorizontal call booth (with activeventilation, and perhaps a failsafe to automatically open on powerloss) would be a lot better.
The ventilation was also hard to control: it was somehow connected tothe lights, where I accidentally turned the air off when turning thelights off and didn't realize until ~1am when it got pretty stuffy.This would probably get better with practice, but it could be a lotmore intuitive.
Overall it was ok and I might do it again, especially if it were a lotcheaper than other options, but I liked it significantly less than Iexpected to.
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