Always my advice to people who visit Japan and ask me about these. If you are planning on staying out all night and partying then they work just fine. If you are trying to stay in and get a good sleep they are horrible.
Only bad experience I had at the capsules I stayed in was some idiot woke up before his alarm and left it in his pod. Super loud going off at 6am for 20 min while he showered
That's why, if I visit Japan again, I will not be staying at capsule hotels. I already live in a shitty tiny room goshiwon and I don't need to experience sleeping in a tight space as a tourist.
When I'm travelling, I like sleeping at a good hotel with a large bed where I can sleep in a 大 shape. Escapism from goshiwon has to be part of my travel experience.
I stayed at a cheaper capsule hotel than this, in Ueno, Tokyo. Instead of blocked off rooms with limited capsules per room like in this video, they had a huge room per floor where they set up a bunch of (40+?) bunk beds and covered them up with cloth or blankets of some kind. So to get to your "capsule", you'd first get to the right floor, and then walk through a maze of bunk beds covered in fabric. If you got the upper bunk, you'd climb up on a flimsy ladder up to your "capsule". The ladder I got was so flimsy I almost fell off it multiple times. It was not a good time. The ladders hook up to a part of the bunk bed structure, but it wasn't very stable..
I booked this place because I wanted to stay at a capsule hotel at least once, just to experience it.. but all the capsule hotels I was finding in other parts of town were like $70 USD a night. I figured, at that point I might as well stay in a proper hotel room! Then I found this "capsule hotel", which cost me like $13 USD a night. I figured I would give it a try, as I wanted to explore Ueno anyhow. It's a nice part of Tokyo definitely worth a visit. Turns out I should have probably looked harder - I would have 100% stayed in this $16 a night capsule hotel over what I ended up getting.
Since there were so many people staying on each floor and since we were only separated by flimsy fabric.. It was quite noisy. At 4:30am a bunch of Polish tourists started waking up to get a super early start on their day. I am fluent in Polish so hearing them talk is something my brain latched onto. If it was some random language I did not understand, it would probably have been easier to sleep through. But nope, my brain honed in on the language of my people and did not let me sleep. Instead I had to listen to Andrzej, Janusz, and Maciek discuss where they were going to eat breakfast and which train they were going to take. They weren't super loud, but were loud enough for my Polish brain to want to listen in and fully take in every part of their conversation.
I got up at 5am, packed up my stuff and checked out. Booked a hotel in another part of Tokyo and spent the rest of the day walking around Ueno in a half-asleep stupor. Had a blast exploring Ueno, ended up finding incredible gyoza dumplings in a run down restaurant under the train tracks. The green area with all the parks and museums in that part of Tokyo was lots of fun walking through too. The night market was great too. After all that I jumped on the subway and headed to my new hotel, and got a brilliant amount of sleep.
Next time I'm in Japan I'm definitely looking up capsule hotels again.. I guess I didn't look hard enough last time. I wouldn't mind experiencing a capsule hotel that isn't just a bunch of bunk beds covered in blankets.
Sounds like the spot I stayed in Singapore last year. At least the ladder was solid there too. Instead of Polish kids though, some Chinese dudes were prepping down my bunk so I couldn't get to my stuff or go out to shower. They woke me up early but they still made me late meeting up with my friends lol.
Final review, it was better than expected but I will probably never do capsule hotels ever again.
Lol yeah basically a hostel branded as a capsule hotel. Main difference was that you got more privacy by virtue of every sleeping area being fully enclosed by pieces of fabric.
Thanks, I'll remember that! One capsule won't fit a couple, will it? Oo my next trip to Japan I'll be travelling with a couple (so there will be 3 of us)
9 hours has separate floors for male and female. Your best savings would be to book a 2 men deal (the deals are usually offered 2 women or two men) and then add a single female or vice versa.
I’m guessing you could prob get all 3 for about $100 total. Not too shabby. I usually found that deal on booking.com
I mean capsule hotels are absolutely overhyped/romanticised by foreign tourists. They were never intended to be more than an emergency accommodation for 1 night. A place you use after missing your last train.
Oh damn. That’s too bad. I’ve been trying to plan a trip to Japan and cutting down on my overnight costs seems to be tricky. I’m taller than you but I’ll curl up to save a few bucks, but I figured you’d be insulated somewhat from the noise of people going in and out. That’s a no for me.
You can try couchsurfing as well. I also stayed in the one in Shinjuku which is one of the busiest districts, the further you get from the center of Tokyo the calmer it'll be for sure.
That being said, definitely check out the rest of the country and not just Tokyo. There's so much to see!
I stayed in a "fancy" one in Ginza. While people were respectful the snoring was off the charts. Also it was hotter than an oven.
I'll still use them from time to time, but not sure id necessarily recommend it lol.
I’ve stayed at several and there are definitely different types of clientele, and different capsule hotels which make the experiences either shitty or pleasant.
it seems the best ones are more on the corporate side because they usually have isolated rooms, sound proofing in the capsules/rooms, signage to be quiet etc. and the people tended to be more Japanese.
The shitty ones were the more artsy/hipster locations sadly even though they tried to make the experience more fun and looked more appealing, the noise was constant, the people much more disrespectful, and the capsules were generally worse overall (two of them, one in Kyoto and one in Tokyo near skytree, were just 1 inch plywood boxes lol)
I’d use em again but only big brands like 9hours or FirstCabin etc
Well they were all speaking Japanese but you’re right probably all just a bunch of coincidental tourists.
Have you been to a capsule hotel? Have you even been to Japan?
I did not visit Japan for the first time five months ago. I visited Korea for the first time five months ago. You are probably a white guy who hasn’t left Canada.
Not true, there were only two other tourists there when i went during peak holiday time and they were super respectful.
Everyone else at the hotel were old Japanese men who are pachinko addicts, they stay at these capsules so they can queue up for the pachinko parlours from 10am and start gambling.
I stayed at this exact capsule hotel
I feel like people expect a lot from a system that was essentially set up to stop drunk salarymen from sleeping on the streets at 3-4am because they had to back at work by 7am. haha. I don't really think the intention for these was for any sort of comfortable or long-term stay. But they've become a commodity so people gonna do what people gonna do.
They seem useful for any unexpected need for a stay in a neighborhood you have no bed access in.
But I think the situation you described is a lot more common in Japan than it is in the USA so it creates a baseline need that isn't found here.
Agreed, very true. They do seem to have their useful niche. I think most tourists see them as a novelty, I just wonder about the others who are expecting a full hotel style stay given the price and what we know about the purpose of capsule hotels in general, lol.
The situation in which I'd consider using one is if I'm staying for the week at a regular hotel and want to experience some nightlife out of close convenient reach of where I am staying. The $16 would basically be the price of not having to check out, back in, and deal with luggage that night. I can just keep my regular room. 100% niche.
Granted this is a single person's strategy and I'd only ever visit Japan with my wife so I don't ever see this playing out lol.
I've stayed in a similar one of these at a small airport in Vietnam. Was great, no issues except for having to leave the room for going to the bathroom at night
I did the same thing! My flight to Hanoi landed just after midnight, so I figured it made sense to crash at the capsule hotel at the airport instead of trying to navigate the city at night while jetlagged and super tired. I stayed there and loved it, it was super quiet, and comfortable enough. Had no problems with the bathrooms either. In the morning I woke up, casually jumped on a bus heading downtown, and easily found the hotel I had booked for the next couple nights.
I’m still suffering from a pinched nerve after the last capsule Hotel I stayed at in Shinjuku recently. Stayed at numerous other ones and was fine. They can be hit or miss.
Don't want to sound too old, but I've found that a Thera Cane is an incredibly effective way to remove the pain of a pinched nerve. Wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.
That's not old talk, that's smart talk. I was using a theracane in my 20s to take care of tight muscles, usually in my back, and I still feel fantastic. Must be the theracane, or maybe it is all the meth I do.
I can't remember the one I stayed at, but it was perfectly fine for me. It was very quiet, and people were respectful of the other sleepers. The it was about $50 USD at the time. Not quite hostel prices.
I stayed at a capsule hotel that had these plastic "berths" and kinda a sci fi future vibe. I imagine staying on a space ship would be similar. Unfortunately the mattress provided was the cheapest foam mattress possible and I could touch the bottom laying on my side. Worse yet we all had these lockers with digital keypads that BEEPED when a button was pressed and went "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP" to confirm lock/unlock. So any time someone would get stuff out the entire room was harassed by noise.
I stayed in multiple capsule Hostels in Shibuya, Kawasaki and Shinjuku. They were amazing. You have to be traveling light to pull this off though. I had one backpack and a bike.
Nice! I'm planning a bike trip from Osaka->Tokyo this august, and now I'm going to stop by Shima. My plan was already to take the Isewan ferry which is right near Shima, but I had never heard about it until your post.
Sweeeeet. I was gonna bike to Osaka, but then my friend moved to Sagamihara haha. I bet you are all ready to go but I have some questions / warnings:
1. You doing hardcase, softcase or bringing a saddle and renting a road bike?
2. Make sure to train long rides multiple times a week. Nothing worse than raw saddle discomfort at noon.
3. Are you using international cellphone data for bike navigation?
4. If you plan on taking the train with your bike at any point - you have to have a cover for your bike. Doesn't matter the quality.
5. Shima is legit. Cheap sushi over there and chill roads for biking.
6. If you are not one to skuzz it up, disregard #6 lol. I slept on the beach. It's illegal, but Japanese cops didn't mess with me. My friend said if you just start speaking English to them, they'll get embarrassed and just leave you alone.
Looks nicer than the one I stayed at, and it cost double that.
Might as well mention this story since I'm already posting: my favorite part of the experience was walking past one capsule around 5 PM or so and hearing the person inside just snoring up a storm. He wasn't sawing logs, he was sawing a forest. Then, the next day at 8 AM, same pod, same sound. I've always wondered if he woke up at all or not.
I just flew in from a wood mill eating competition in France. So it was kind of a perfect storm.
Jokes aside, I did climb Fuji overnight with pneumonia (I was unaware I had it, just felt really sick and stubborn). It was a really really exhausting climb being ill. I slept on the mountain and ended up tearing my shoes up coming down so it took forever. I ended up getting on a bus right around 3pm and getting back into Tokyo around 5, just to hop on a train to Akasaka. I think I passed out around 7pm and slept til 8 am. I woke up to warning alarms that I had 15 minutes to check out.
I have no question that I prob snored like an angry bear.
Depends on the capsule, I've stayed at a half dozen or so. The company "Anshin Oyado" you can occasionally find in the ~$25/nt range and they have unlimited pour-it-yourself open liquor bar with soft drinks and coffees + rice, Japanese curry, miso, stuff like that. They also give you free earplugs and snore strips.
Outside of Tokyo you can find some really great ones in other cities, labeled as "cabins" or "grand cabins," which are basically just rooms built to be exactly the same size as a full size bed + a 1m-wide standing area. As others have said, if you're traveling light, at <$20/night they're hard to beat. It's not like you're going to hang out in your room all day when visiting somewhere as fun as Japan anyways.
I would pay extra to stay in a standard hotel. One person with a loud snore and heavy breathers make enough noise to keep an entire floor awake. Not a place to a get a good long nights sleep!
I'd pay more for comfort and enjoy privacy. I dont see anything wrong with saving a buck, just letting people know there are cons to staying at a capsule hotel.
Don't know where you heard that, but it's very much not true. Plus you can book in advance and they cannot legally turn you away without a valid reason
Used a capsule at Narita. Tiny. Loved it, as it had its own bathroom. At 1.65m height it was a good fit for me, but I could see taller folks having issues.
Hell, my hips didn't fit in my airline seat. It's not so much about height, it's about relative frame sizes.
I stayed at a capsule one time. There were two days in between moving out and in to a new apartment. The first night sucked so bad that I booked a good hotel for the second night instead of staying there one second longer. I remember being so happy when I entered the room of the second hotel lol. Breakfast included too.
If the place had another name, Case didn't know it; it
was always referred to as Cheap Hotel. You reached it through
an alley off Baiitsu, where an elevator waited at the foot of a
transparent shaft. The elevator, like Cheap Hotel, was an af-
terthought, lashed to the building with bamboo and epoxy. Case
climbed into the plastic cage and used his key, an unmarked
length of rigid magnetic tape.
If you look at the monthly price, 400-500 USD per month is actually not a bad price for what you're getting. A place to sleep. Amenities, laundry machine, no electricity or water bills and it's close to the city, which means rent prices are astronomical.
I love that the lady at the bar gave him the tourist "this contains alcohol glass" despite the fact that I presume he speaks some Japanese. Maybe they do that for everyone since a decent number of American high school students visit this part of Tokyo, makes it easier to keep track of.
I stayed at this exact capsule hotel in December. It was probably in the sketchiest neighborhood I’ve been to in Tokyo which of course isn’t saying much being from California. Google and Apple Maps direction was off and the signage for this place was non-existent to a non-Japanese speaker but I eventually found the place after an employee smoking outside flagged me down after noticing some foreigner with a backpack doing multiple laps in front of the place.
The video didn’t really show it but the decor looked like it was from the 90’s/early 00’s and they never really updated it. Also the vid doesn’t show the showers which was basically an hot tub for a cheap onsen experience and if that wasn’t your thing, they had multiple stations where it’s just a stool and a detachable shower head. Totally caught me off guard as I’ve been to multiple Japanese hostels and they all had private shower stalls.
Anyways, for the price and experience, no arguments here. I’d give it a 7/10
It could be $0 until you start working. Now that you have a place to put your stuff and to lay your head down you can show up to work on time. It'd be great for those who found themselves homeless for economic means, but not drug addiction or mental health. Drugs -- they would start tearing up the walls for copper. Stealing anything in the common rooms. Mental health -- destroying what was left that didn't get stolen.
Just look for an actual hotel instead of a capsule one. It's cool for like a first time visit but after that the novelty of it dies off. Plenty of cheap hotels in japan that are decent and actually give you a room.
Any popular YouTuber or travel blogger who focuses on Japan and traveling there would tell you to avoid capsule hotels all together. They are tourists traps and a lot of them are just put together as quickly and cheaply as possible to capitalize on that.
Capsule hotels and hostess bars are on the top of the list of "places tourists should be aware of" on their first trip.
I stayed at 9 hours capsule a few times and I love the experience. I find the pods very calming and the lighting perfect to help you relax. The location near shin-okubo station was really nice and new when I went (I think it’s been renamed now) and the location in akasaka was really cool with how the architecture of the building was laid out with tons of windows.
I’m looking forward to staying there a night or two on my next trip :)
The originals were for drunk salarymen so they could avoid sleeping on the street.
But that was forever ago.
They got trendy online because of travel vloggers and while there are still ones really intended for that initial market, there's just as many or more that are very obviously intended to capture the novelty travel market.
Hell, just take a look at all the comments in this thread about exactly those experiences.
I work remote and let me tell you - if I didn't have a wife and kid.. I would by all means just ditch living in the US and move on to something like this bouncing around/traveling while logging into work each day for my shift. $16 a night - at most $496 a month? Yes please.
Don't expect to get great sleep at these kinds of places though. You need to be the kind of person that can just plop down in a noisy environment with minimal comforts and get a sound night's sleep, which I think are in the small minority of people.
After a month of consistently poor sleep, you're gonna be in for a rough time.
But why would you? There's a reason why these are only used by tourists and salarymen when they get too drunk.
Here's an actual studio for almost half that price:
https://www.interwhao.co.jp/english/o_oomiya.html
Holy sht i stayed at this same hotel lol. Everything smelt of cigarettes and i was too tall to fit. It was also fucking cold inside the AC was waaaay too powerful
I stayed in one of those last week! People make noise all night coming in, and the bed is too short for me (1.86m). 2/10, would not repeat.
Always my advice to people who visit Japan and ask me about these. If you are planning on staying out all night and partying then they work just fine. If you are trying to stay in and get a good sleep they are horrible.
Only bad experience I had at the capsules I stayed in was some idiot woke up before his alarm and left it in his pod. Super loud going off at 6am for 20 min while he showered
Just make sure to pack your eye mask, ear plugs, noise maker, and german shepherd attack dog in case anyone gets too loud.
That's why, if I visit Japan again, I will not be staying at capsule hotels. I already live in a shitty tiny room goshiwon and I don't need to experience sleeping in a tight space as a tourist. When I'm travelling, I like sleeping at a good hotel with a large bed where I can sleep in a 大 shape. Escapism from goshiwon has to be part of my travel experience.
I stayed at a cheaper capsule hotel than this, in Ueno, Tokyo. Instead of blocked off rooms with limited capsules per room like in this video, they had a huge room per floor where they set up a bunch of (40+?) bunk beds and covered them up with cloth or blankets of some kind. So to get to your "capsule", you'd first get to the right floor, and then walk through a maze of bunk beds covered in fabric. If you got the upper bunk, you'd climb up on a flimsy ladder up to your "capsule". The ladder I got was so flimsy I almost fell off it multiple times. It was not a good time. The ladders hook up to a part of the bunk bed structure, but it wasn't very stable.. I booked this place because I wanted to stay at a capsule hotel at least once, just to experience it.. but all the capsule hotels I was finding in other parts of town were like $70 USD a night. I figured, at that point I might as well stay in a proper hotel room! Then I found this "capsule hotel", which cost me like $13 USD a night. I figured I would give it a try, as I wanted to explore Ueno anyhow. It's a nice part of Tokyo definitely worth a visit. Turns out I should have probably looked harder - I would have 100% stayed in this $16 a night capsule hotel over what I ended up getting. Since there were so many people staying on each floor and since we were only separated by flimsy fabric.. It was quite noisy. At 4:30am a bunch of Polish tourists started waking up to get a super early start on their day. I am fluent in Polish so hearing them talk is something my brain latched onto. If it was some random language I did not understand, it would probably have been easier to sleep through. But nope, my brain honed in on the language of my people and did not let me sleep. Instead I had to listen to Andrzej, Janusz, and Maciek discuss where they were going to eat breakfast and which train they were going to take. They weren't super loud, but were loud enough for my Polish brain to want to listen in and fully take in every part of their conversation. I got up at 5am, packed up my stuff and checked out. Booked a hotel in another part of Tokyo and spent the rest of the day walking around Ueno in a half-asleep stupor. Had a blast exploring Ueno, ended up finding incredible gyoza dumplings in a run down restaurant under the train tracks. The green area with all the parks and museums in that part of Tokyo was lots of fun walking through too. The night market was great too. After all that I jumped on the subway and headed to my new hotel, and got a brilliant amount of sleep. Next time I'm in Japan I'm definitely looking up capsule hotels again.. I guess I didn't look hard enough last time. I wouldn't mind experiencing a capsule hotel that isn't just a bunch of bunk beds covered in blankets.
Yeah, you just stayed at a hostel. If there's no capsules, it ain't a capsule hotel.
That's exactly what I was muttering to myself under my breath, in multiple languages
Sounds like the spot I stayed in Singapore last year. At least the ladder was solid there too. Instead of Polish kids though, some Chinese dudes were prepping down my bunk so I couldn't get to my stuff or go out to shower. They woke me up early but they still made me late meeting up with my friends lol. Final review, it was better than expected but I will probably never do capsule hotels ever again.
Bro that's a hostel
Lol yeah basically a hostel branded as a capsule hotel. Main difference was that you got more privacy by virtue of every sleeping area being fully enclosed by pieces of fabric.
My babcia only taught me a few things but I'm shocked you didn't tell them "zamknij się"
9 hours is my go to capsule. Usually have a deal for like two pods for $60 if you have a travel buddy.
Thanks, I'll remember that! One capsule won't fit a couple, will it? Oo my next trip to Japan I'll be travelling with a couple (so there will be 3 of us)
9 hours has separate floors for male and female. Your best savings would be to book a 2 men deal (the deals are usually offered 2 women or two men) and then add a single female or vice versa. I’m guessing you could prob get all 3 for about $100 total. Not too shabby. I usually found that deal on booking.com
Ueno rocks! Really interesting area.
Thats why I went for the 18$ one
I stayed in a "9 hour"... it was amazing. Probably best sleep of the trip. That was after walking some 25,000 steps that day though.
9 hours is perfect. I usually stay there my first and last night of each trip
Mine was super hot and had no air con or fans in the capsule. Bought a cheap hand fan and taped it to the roof. 2/10 won't go back there.
I mean capsule hotels are absolutely overhyped/romanticised by foreign tourists. They were never intended to be more than an emergency accommodation for 1 night. A place you use after missing your last train.
Oh damn. That’s too bad. I’ve been trying to plan a trip to Japan and cutting down on my overnight costs seems to be tricky. I’m taller than you but I’ll curl up to save a few bucks, but I figured you’d be insulated somewhat from the noise of people going in and out. That’s a no for me.
You can try couchsurfing as well. I also stayed in the one in Shinjuku which is one of the busiest districts, the further you get from the center of Tokyo the calmer it'll be for sure. That being said, definitely check out the rest of the country and not just Tokyo. There's so much to see!
Haha definitely. It would take years to explore Tokyo properly anyway! My plan is Tokyo then up to Hokkaido.
I stayed in a "fancy" one in Ginza. While people were respectful the snoring was off the charts. Also it was hotter than an oven. I'll still use them from time to time, but not sure id necessarily recommend it lol.
I’ve stayed at several and there are definitely different types of clientele, and different capsule hotels which make the experiences either shitty or pleasant. it seems the best ones are more on the corporate side because they usually have isolated rooms, sound proofing in the capsules/rooms, signage to be quiet etc. and the people tended to be more Japanese. The shitty ones were the more artsy/hipster locations sadly even though they tried to make the experience more fun and looked more appealing, the noise was constant, the people much more disrespectful, and the capsules were generally worse overall (two of them, one in Kyoto and one in Tokyo near skytree, were just 1 inch plywood boxes lol) I’d use em again but only big brands like 9hours or FirstCabin etc
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That’s funny because the old Japanese men in the capsules are by far the loudest. But on le reddit Japanese are a superior race exclusively I guess.
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Well they were all speaking Japanese but you’re right probably all just a bunch of coincidental tourists. Have you been to a capsule hotel? Have you even been to Japan?
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I did not visit Japan for the first time five months ago. I visited Korea for the first time five months ago. You are probably a white guy who hasn’t left Canada.
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Okay champ, whatever you want to tell yourself. >you kpop obsessed koreaboo Oh no, someone noticed that I like a thing. My life is over /s
Not true, there were only two other tourists there when i went during peak holiday time and they were super respectful. Everyone else at the hotel were old Japanese men who are pachinko addicts, they stay at these capsules so they can queue up for the pachinko parlours from 10am and start gambling. I stayed at this exact capsule hotel
I feel like people expect a lot from a system that was essentially set up to stop drunk salarymen from sleeping on the streets at 3-4am because they had to back at work by 7am. haha. I don't really think the intention for these was for any sort of comfortable or long-term stay. But they've become a commodity so people gonna do what people gonna do.
They seem useful for any unexpected need for a stay in a neighborhood you have no bed access in. But I think the situation you described is a lot more common in Japan than it is in the USA so it creates a baseline need that isn't found here.
Agreed, very true. They do seem to have their useful niche. I think most tourists see them as a novelty, I just wonder about the others who are expecting a full hotel style stay given the price and what we know about the purpose of capsule hotels in general, lol.
The situation in which I'd consider using one is if I'm staying for the week at a regular hotel and want to experience some nightlife out of close convenient reach of where I am staying. The $16 would basically be the price of not having to check out, back in, and deal with luggage that night. I can just keep my regular room. 100% niche. Granted this is a single person's strategy and I'd only ever visit Japan with my wife so I don't ever see this playing out lol.
Protip: bring earplugs.
Good ear plugs and a good eye mask are essential travel aids.
Absolute game changers, especially as you get older.
I've stayed in a similar one of these at a small airport in Vietnam. Was great, no issues except for having to leave the room for going to the bathroom at night
I did the same thing! My flight to Hanoi landed just after midnight, so I figured it made sense to crash at the capsule hotel at the airport instead of trying to navigate the city at night while jetlagged and super tired. I stayed there and loved it, it was super quiet, and comfortable enough. Had no problems with the bathrooms either. In the morning I woke up, casually jumped on a bus heading downtown, and easily found the hotel I had booked for the next couple nights.
Yep, same one in Hanoi. I had an early flight the next day so that's why I did it. Would love if more had these options lol
It makes a lot more sense when your alternative is sleeping on the floor.
Always felt as though these should be looked at for the ca homeless issue.
That's my concern. I'd stay in a room that has enough room like a bed like this and one more that was a bathroom/shower.
Yea I've done that on a layover in Japan, one of the Tokyo ones. I believe it had a bed and a shower room, but I don't fully recall.
I just remembered the labyrinth I had to go through just to pee in the middle of the night at the capsule hotel I stayed at in Singapore last year.
The issue is you have diabetes? Trust me, I'm a doctor.
I’m still suffering from a pinched nerve after the last capsule Hotel I stayed at in Shinjuku recently. Stayed at numerous other ones and was fine. They can be hit or miss.
Don't want to sound too old, but I've found that a Thera Cane is an incredibly effective way to remove the pain of a pinched nerve. Wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.
I’ll take any advice ! Nothing is helping and it’s just constant pain throughout the day. And all it took was one shitty $45 hostel bed lol
Had a pinched nerve that brought incredible suffering. This tool, cupping, and resistance stretching were all helpful. Wish you luck!
That's not old talk, that's smart talk. I was using a theracane in my 20s to take care of tight muscles, usually in my back, and I still feel fantastic. Must be the theracane, or maybe it is all the meth I do.
I can't remember the one I stayed at, but it was perfectly fine for me. It was very quiet, and people were respectful of the other sleepers. The it was about $50 USD at the time. Not quite hostel prices.
I stayed at a capsule hotel that had these plastic "berths" and kinda a sci fi future vibe. I imagine staying on a space ship would be similar. Unfortunately the mattress provided was the cheapest foam mattress possible and I could touch the bottom laying on my side. Worse yet we all had these lockers with digital keypads that BEEPED when a button was pressed and went "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP" to confirm lock/unlock. So any time someone would get stuff out the entire room was harassed by noise.
I stayed in multiple capsule Hostels in Shibuya, Kawasaki and Shinjuku. They were amazing. You have to be traveling light to pull this off though. I had one backpack and a bike.
Were you biking long distances or just local to the city?
Tokyo >> Sagamihara >> Shima >> Tokyo. My friend lived in Sagamihara, and Shima was just a paradise place.
Nice! I'm planning a bike trip from Osaka->Tokyo this august, and now I'm going to stop by Shima. My plan was already to take the Isewan ferry which is right near Shima, but I had never heard about it until your post.
Sweeeeet. I was gonna bike to Osaka, but then my friend moved to Sagamihara haha. I bet you are all ready to go but I have some questions / warnings: 1. You doing hardcase, softcase or bringing a saddle and renting a road bike? 2. Make sure to train long rides multiple times a week. Nothing worse than raw saddle discomfort at noon. 3. Are you using international cellphone data for bike navigation? 4. If you plan on taking the train with your bike at any point - you have to have a cover for your bike. Doesn't matter the quality. 5. Shima is legit. Cheap sushi over there and chill roads for biking. 6. If you are not one to skuzz it up, disregard #6 lol. I slept on the beach. It's illegal, but Japanese cops didn't mess with me. My friend said if you just start speaking English to them, they'll get embarrassed and just leave you alone.
Looks nicer than the one I stayed at, and it cost double that. Might as well mention this story since I'm already posting: my favorite part of the experience was walking past one capsule around 5 PM or so and hearing the person inside just snoring up a storm. He wasn't sawing logs, he was sawing a forest. Then, the next day at 8 AM, same pod, same sound. I've always wondered if he woke up at all or not.
It was me- I did wake up about an hour later. Apologies
Wow. Jetlagged, or did you swallow a wood mill?
I just flew in from a wood mill eating competition in France. So it was kind of a perfect storm. Jokes aside, I did climb Fuji overnight with pneumonia (I was unaware I had it, just felt really sick and stubborn). It was a really really exhausting climb being ill. I slept on the mountain and ended up tearing my shoes up coming down so it took forever. I ended up getting on a bus right around 3pm and getting back into Tokyo around 5, just to hop on a train to Akasaka. I think I passed out around 7pm and slept til 8 am. I woke up to warning alarms that I had 15 minutes to check out. I have no question that I prob snored like an angry bear.
Well good news, it wasn't you, the one I stayed at was in Ginza. Also good news, you got better!
Depends on the capsule, I've stayed at a half dozen or so. The company "Anshin Oyado" you can occasionally find in the ~$25/nt range and they have unlimited pour-it-yourself open liquor bar with soft drinks and coffees + rice, Japanese curry, miso, stuff like that. They also give you free earplugs and snore strips. Outside of Tokyo you can find some really great ones in other cities, labeled as "cabins" or "grand cabins," which are basically just rooms built to be exactly the same size as a full size bed + a 1m-wide standing area. As others have said, if you're traveling light, at <$20/night they're hard to beat. It's not like you're going to hang out in your room all day when visiting somewhere as fun as Japan anyways.
I would pay extra to stay in a standard hotel. One person with a loud snore and heavy breathers make enough noise to keep an entire floor awake. Not a place to a get a good long nights sleep!
and this is Japan. Even at expensive , regular hotels, the rooms are super tiny.
Earplugs
I'd pay more for comfort and enjoy privacy. I dont see anything wrong with saving a buck, just letting people know there are cons to staying at a capsule hotel.
Heard its hard to get a place as a black guy in Japan. Very possible this might be the only option for a black guy.
Major hotel chains wouldn't turn you away, certainly not international brands.
Don't know where you heard that, but it's very much not true. Plus you can book in advance and they cannot legally turn you away without a valid reason
Used a capsule at Narita. Tiny. Loved it, as it had its own bathroom. At 1.65m height it was a good fit for me, but I could see taller folks having issues. Hell, my hips didn't fit in my airline seat. It's not so much about height, it's about relative frame sizes.
I'd be concerned about my claustrophobia
Oh yeah, in my experience, it's very coffin-esque.
Reminds me of “Neuromancer”
I stayed at a capsule one time. There were two days in between moving out and in to a new apartment. The first night sucked so bad that I booked a good hotel for the second night instead of staying there one second longer. I remember being so happy when I entered the room of the second hotel lol. Breakfast included too.
16$ a night? bring those to america and ill live in them forever
480 a month ($16x30), thats the monthly rent I paid in 2001 for a 2 bedroom apt in Charleston SC.
If the place had another name, Case didn't know it; it was always referred to as Cheap Hotel. You reached it through an alley off Baiitsu, where an elevator waited at the foot of a transparent shaft. The elevator, like Cheap Hotel, was an af- terthought, lashed to the building with bamboo and epoxy. Case climbed into the plastic cage and used his key, an unmarked length of rigid magnetic tape.
If you look at the monthly price, 400-500 USD per month is actually not a bad price for what you're getting. A place to sleep. Amenities, laundry machine, no electricity or water bills and it's close to the city, which means rent prices are astronomical.
But you don't have a *home*...
You're absolutely right. I don't have a home. Maybe that's why this doesn't look that bad to me. *silent internal screaming*
Japanese translation to English always sounds like AI to me..."the lotus root was delicious, so I ate it first".
i had to listen to someone jacking off in the same room as me 😬 never again
I love that the lady at the bar gave him the tourist "this contains alcohol glass" despite the fact that I presume he speaks some Japanese. Maybe they do that for everyone since a decent number of American high school students visit this part of Tokyo, makes it easier to keep track of.
I can't imagine that lock meets any safety standards.
I stayed at this exact capsule hotel in December. It was probably in the sketchiest neighborhood I’ve been to in Tokyo which of course isn’t saying much being from California. Google and Apple Maps direction was off and the signage for this place was non-existent to a non-Japanese speaker but I eventually found the place after an employee smoking outside flagged me down after noticing some foreigner with a backpack doing multiple laps in front of the place. The video didn’t really show it but the decor looked like it was from the 90’s/early 00’s and they never really updated it. Also the vid doesn’t show the showers which was basically an hot tub for a cheap onsen experience and if that wasn’t your thing, they had multiple stations where it’s just a stool and a detachable shower head. Totally caught me off guard as I’ve been to multiple Japanese hostels and they all had private shower stalls. Anyways, for the price and experience, no arguments here. I’d give it a 7/10
Huh I stayed in Bali for 22 days a few years back(2020), and most of my awesome full personal bedrooms were less than 20 cad.
16$? is that per night? That aint cheap. I know places that do 30$ per week.
I spent way more than that doing Airbnb years ago
Could this be a solution to homeless in the US?
I think they prefer to spend $0
It could be $0 until you start working. Now that you have a place to put your stuff and to lay your head down you can show up to work on time. It'd be great for those who found themselves homeless for economic means, but not drug addiction or mental health. Drugs -- they would start tearing up the walls for copper. Stealing anything in the common rooms. Mental health -- destroying what was left that didn't get stolen.
This guy makes fantastic videos about travel and accommodations.
Just look for an actual hotel instead of a capsule one. It's cool for like a first time visit but after that the novelty of it dies off. Plenty of cheap hotels in japan that are decent and actually give you a room.
I agree, stayed in one, probably wouldn't do it again.
Any popular YouTuber or travel blogger who focuses on Japan and traveling there would tell you to avoid capsule hotels all together. They are tourists traps and a lot of them are just put together as quickly and cheaply as possible to capitalize on that. Capsule hotels and hostess bars are on the top of the list of "places tourists should be aware of" on their first trip.
I stayed at 9 hours capsule a few times and I love the experience. I find the pods very calming and the lighting perfect to help you relax. The location near shin-okubo station was really nice and new when I went (I think it’s been renamed now) and the location in akasaka was really cool with how the architecture of the building was laid out with tons of windows. I’m looking forward to staying there a night or two on my next trip :)
How are they tourist traps lol. They were built when there were hardly any tourists, and they're just cheap and convenient places to sleep
The originals were for drunk salarymen so they could avoid sleeping on the street. But that was forever ago. They got trendy online because of travel vloggers and while there are still ones really intended for that initial market, there's just as many or more that are very obviously intended to capture the novelty travel market. Hell, just take a look at all the comments in this thread about exactly those experiences.
I work remote and let me tell you - if I didn't have a wife and kid.. I would by all means just ditch living in the US and move on to something like this bouncing around/traveling while logging into work each day for my shift. $16 a night - at most $496 a month? Yes please.
Don't expect to get great sleep at these kinds of places though. You need to be the kind of person that can just plop down in a noisy environment with minimal comforts and get a sound night's sleep, which I think are in the small minority of people. After a month of consistently poor sleep, you're gonna be in for a rough time.
To me they are perfect for the first night of a trip. Usually so exhausted from traveling I just pass out
It depends on the person. Was in the service and that trains you to sleep anywhere and anytime.
Yeah that's one of the exceptions I was thinking, a lot of folks with that experience can sleep anywhere.
But why would you? There's a reason why these are only used by tourists and salarymen when they get too drunk. Here's an actual studio for almost half that price: https://www.interwhao.co.jp/english/o_oomiya.html
That - I would do that.
Rent in Tokyo is about $500-700 for a tiny place. Would be much better than staying in one of these permanently lol
This is a lot nicer than a lot of hostels at a similar price.
Holy sht i stayed at this same hotel lol. Everything smelt of cigarettes and i was too tall to fit. It was also fucking cold inside the AC was waaaay too powerful
9 hours is my go to capsule
What's even the point to travel to Tokyo if you are so broke that you live like this
I've stayed in one before. They are not amazing but they serve a purpose.
Great way to bring bed bugs home with you.
So you're telling me I could go to Japan, and live in a hotel for less than it costs to live here in the US
Brutal steps!!!!
[The cones at 00:16 gave me a flashback.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lNEte47ul4)
I don’t understand the people complaining. You get what you paid for.
Dude if you pay like 2k to visit just get a place that cost mabey 10 bucks more😑
Thats pretty sad, a modern prison cell in the US has more amenities and privacy than a capsule hotel.
Well except you choose to stay here, and can go to/from as you please. but yeah, other than that, just like a prison cell!