Ever been to Japan and missed your flight and wanted a place just to stay for the night. Then capsules hotels are the right choice. Capsule hotels or pod hotels were opened in Osaka in 1979 by Kisho Kurokawa. Their main target audience when they started out were business men who wanted a cheap and affordable place to stay in for a night or two. This ingenious use of space in a country that lacks space is commendable. A good chunk of money in Japan while travelling can be spent on accomodation if not planned properly, japanese hotels are expensive and for someone on a budget an night bus or pod hotels can save a lot of money.

Now what are these capsule hotels?

 Well they are basically capsule like rooms stacked on top of each. The closest example would be to imagine two bathtubs stacks on top of each other. The size of the capsule is as wide and long as a standard bed size and there is only enough room to crawl in and sit in the capsule, standing up is not an option. It offers some basic facilities within the capsule like charging points, television facilities, and small space to keep your stuff, air conditioning depending on how expensive the hotel is and the opening end of the capsule has a curtain or a screen for privacy, there’ll be no ventilation if they had doors.

Coming to the topic of privacy, before entering the capsule all your extra luggage would be kept in a personal locker other than this all the other aspects of privacy have to be adjusted to, there’s not much you can do about it, as the capsules are stacked close to each other noises can be heard from one pod to another, there are common washrooms which provide one time use toothbrushes, shampoos and some toiletries. A common shower space or an onsen is available. A resting area and a lounge is available 24 hours to finish your tasks at hand without disturbing others.

Now a days there are a whole variety of capsule hotels from different price range, to various services offered, with onsen without onsen, extra facilities and more.

Capsule hotels are best suited for one night stays and budget travellers on the go and unlike actual hotels you will not have to worry about the availability as there are tons of variety of pod hotels available.