What a Capsule Hotel is Really Like

Jennifer Pinkerton shuns little luxuries like a door and a private bath to experience the cosy comforts of a capsule hotel.

In 1979 the meaning of the term ‘hotel room’ got shazam-ed. Now that may not be a real word, but then again this new breed of hotel was a little unreal. A hotel room has a door, a bed, a place to hang your hat and, if you’re lucky, a window, yes? Well the Japanese thought that was all a tad predictable.

The year in question launched the Sony Walkman; it too debuted the capsule hotel. Dubbed the ‘hotel for 2001’ by late Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, this design swapped rooms for spaces little bigger than coffins. I wanted to see one. Better still, I wanted to sleep in one.

What are capsule hotels?

Guest 'capsules' are simple but make the most of limited space at Asakusa Hotel and Capsule — Guest ‘capsules’ are simple but make the most of limited space at Asakusa Hotel and Capsule.

Traditionally capsule hotels are for men – specifically businessmen too tipsy to face their wives. That meant my first task was to find a female-friendly version. Google led me to the grammatically suspicious Hotel Asakusa & Capsule, which is located in Tokyo’s Asakusa district, about an hour’s drive from Narita Airport.

Arrival

The first rule of capsuling, I learn, is not to arrive early. The hotel opens at 4pm. I’m there at 3:50pm and the three elderly gents manning reception don’t want to know about it.

Japan is renowned for its capsule hotels in city centres.

On cue, ten minutes later, the glass doors open. Inside, the foyer looks like a 1970s power station. There’s a clutch of green boxy lockers, oddly lit-up machines, and the wall behind reception boasts enough switches, knobs and flashing lights to control a city. What do they all do? I’d love to ask, but alas, the staff and I do not speak the same tongue.

Payment and check-in

I introduce myself using my best Year 7 Japanese, but my inflated sense of mastery stops there. The staff point to a vending machine behind me. “Pay, pay, pay," they instruct through painfully polite smiles.

We go undercover to review Asakusa Hotel and Capsule in Tokyo.

I shuffle over and make like I know what I’m doing. Various amounts of Japanese Yen, from 1700 to 4400, appear on the machine buttons. A kind-faced man plods to my aid. He punches the 2200 Yen button, which at the time of writing is about $22; a little under what you’d pay for a dorm room in a hostel back home. Good start? Hmm, we’ll see.

The machine spurts out a ticket. I trade it at reception for two more bingo-esque tickets, reading ‘4F’ and ‘5F’, and a small key marked ‘508’. A receptionist holds up a laminated card, showing what looks like a television remote control. In red texta ‘3Y’ is scrawled beneath the image.

Am I on candid camera? I feel like this is The Truman Show; that somehow The Creator is watching me, seeing if I’m smart enough to work things out. I’m not. But that doesn’t stop me from faking it. I smile, gather my bags and the mess of baffling bingo tickets, then wait for the lift.

“Miss, Miss, Miss! Shoes! Shoes! Shoes!" The three men dash towards me, pointing at my shoes like they’re on fire. Another sequence unfurls: pointing, cringing, flailing and furrowed brows. Red-cheeked, I drop my sandals in a boxy locker, don a pair of brown vinyl slides, and try the lift again.

Navigating the hotel

I hazard a guess that I’m on floor five – 5F: F for female? – but I’m lost for the meaning of the bingo tickets and remote control code.

Small bedroom pods are stacked on eachother at Asakusa Hotel and Capsule, Japan.

I reach floor five. There’s nothing here save a men’s bathroom and more red lights. I go back to reception feeling utterly inept. Again, I’m sent to floor five. This time I spot it: the remote control code is in fact a coded door lock. I punch in ‘3Y’. Open Sesame.

The orange-lit corridor that greets me can best be described as ‘naval’. It looks like a ship’s sleeping quarters. Thirty-six accordion screens, each one-metre-square, line the room. There’s a bottom and a top row. The screens have number plaques above them.

The room

Like a desert oasis – or a cosy prison cell, I can’t quite decide – it calls to me: Capsule 508. I open the curtain and crawl its two-metre length. Door? Nope, but it’s private. Bed? Well there’s a thin mattress, clean sheets and a rice husk pillow. A place to hang my hat? Yes, there’s a shelf at the end of the capsule with a tiny TV and four coat hangers. Oh and there’s a small locker, too.

This may not be a room, but it’s one hell of a retro capsule. And it’s got all I need.

Facilities

Night befalls the hotel and, surprisingly, I muster swagger and make friends in the fantastically odd ground-floor tea room. It’s fringed with vending machines selling beer, noodles and hot coffee; as well as a row of fat-backed computers, adding weight to the hotel’s living-museum feel.

Communal baths and showers are just part of the experience at Asakusa Hotel and Capsule in Tokyo.

The final frontier is my pre-bed shower. But where’s the bathroom? After much head scratching I make my way to floor four (4F! Floor 4, Female bathroom!). But there’s no shower inside. Just a bath. To share. A big, everyone-in, onsen-style bath.

It’s been quite the day of cross-cultural barrier climbing and now I have to be nude! Publicly! I breathe deep, strip, and enter the water along with three other bathers. We sit in silence. It’s a small feat, but I meet it. I’m triumphant. I feel like a pseudo travel pioneer.

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The verdict

But I’m not one, of course. Onsen or no onsen, capsule hotels have been around as long as I have. There are over 300 in Japan alone. Modern capsules, I discover, are no longer havens for drunken businessmen. Instead they mix locals on a budget with curious, mostly backpacking foreigners.

It’s a slow revolution, but after my brilliant night’s sleep (and in the moment just before we’re ushered out the front door at 10:30 am sharp for the hotel’s ‘no guests inside’ period) I decide this beats Western-style dorm-sleeping hands down.

Dorms can keep their shared-space cacophony: the clunky late night arrivals, the snorers, the hiking boot odours. Capsules celebrate what I love about Japan. They’ve got a strong aesthetic, they’re efficient, private and weird.

They are also 10 floors south of luxe, but as far as vending machine buys go, this one certainly is a shazam.

Details

Hotel Asakusa & Capsule
4-14-9 Kotobuki, Taito-ku , Tokyo
+81 3 3847 4477

The IT Verdict

Incredible value for open-minded, budget-conscious travellers happy to store their luggage in separate lockers (bags aren’t allowed in capsules) and to be evicted between the hours of 10:30 am and 4 pm. This hotel is quirky Japan at its best: it isn’t just a place to kip, it’s a cultural experience.

Notes

We paid $22 per night for a female-floor capsule.

Planning a trip to Tokyo? Read our ultimate guide to where to sleep, stay and eat in Tokyo.

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.

What a night at a ‘capsule hotel’ is really like