The Unique Lodging Option In Japan That's A Budget-Conscious Traveler's Dream

Japan has its fair share of novelty hotel options, from a treehouse resort in Okinawa to the robot receptionists of the Henn na Hotel chain. You can stay in kitschy, themed love hotels or even a Godzilla-themed room at Tokyo's Hotel Gracery Shinjuku. However, as cool as it might be to bunk in a treehouse or real-life Godzilla landmark, some of these novelties are offset by astronomical prices. You could wind up paying over a thousand dollars for such experiences, which makes the offbeat appeal of a capsule hotel's sleeping pods all the more inviting for budget travelers.

In lieu of a traditional room, most capsule hotels will put you on a futon in a plastic or fiberglass compartment with a built-in TV. Anyone over 6 feet tall might have to sleep with their knees hiked up, since the capsules aren't usually long enough for someone of that height (like yours truly) to stretch their legs out all the way. They're double-stacked in long rows, so you'll need to climb a ladder if your unit number is on top.

Depending on the hotel, your capsule could look and feel like a cooler in the morgue, a dryer in the laundromat, or a cryogenic chamber in a sci-fi movie. Yet what they lack in breathing room, they make up for in sheer affordability compared to luxury hotels. In a densely populated city like Tokyo, where some people sleep in apartments the size of broom closets, capsule hotels take the concept of limited space to the extreme.

Designed to be the "business hotel of the year 2100," the world's first capsule hotel opened in Osaka, Japan, in 1979. Capsule Inn Osaka was the brainchild of Kisho Kurokawa, the architect behind Nakagin Capsule Tower, an eye-catching fixture along the Tokyo Expressway from 1972 to 2022 (when it finally underwent demolition). Construction on the tower itself (pictured above) began in 1970 when Osaka first hosted the World Expo.

You may have seen Hugh Jackman's character approach the tower in the superhero film "The Wolverine," where the Metabolist-style blocks that formed its exterior stood in for a Hiroshima love hotel. Capsule Inn Osaka, meanwhile, closed temporarily ahead of the city's next World Expo in 2025, but you could stay there in 2024 and enjoy breakfast at no extra charge. For a starting price of 3,900 yen (about $26) on weeknights, the most affordable capsule type would secure you a twin-size mattress in a compartment with an electrical socket but no TV.

You'd have access to the adjacent sauna and spa, New Japan Umeda, but if you wanted a shower, you'd have to spring for the deluxe capsule type (4,800 yen, or around $32, on weekends). Another benefit of Capsule Inn Osaka when it's open is that it's only a 10-minute walk from a major transportation hub, Osaka Station — not to mention local landmarks like the Hep Five Ferris Wheel. If the sleep pods in this retro-futuristic hotel start to feel like a claustrophobic fire hazard, not to worry, as they're even outfitted with sprinklers.

As the first of its kind, Capsule Inn Osaka is just one example of the experience that might await you at a capsule hotel. In a country where 24-hour manga and internet cafes provide makeshift lodging, capsules evolved as another bottom-rung option for accommodations cheaper than a business hotel. People down on their luck have even been known to rent them by the month and live out of them rather than go homeless.

Locker rooms for your belongings, shared bathrooms and personal grooming stations, and communal lounges with manga libraries are standard fare in a capsule hotel. You'll often be separated from neighboring capsules by a curtain or a door without a lock (a legal requirement for this kind of hotel in Japan). You can pull the curtain down for privacy, but it's a setup that might leave your capsule drafty or stuffy. The capsules aren't exactly soundproof, either, so if you're a light sleeper, it's probably best to bring ear plugs in case someone around you snores or you land in a dorm with a noisy hostel vibe.

Some capsule hotels now have separate floors or branches for men and women. Yet they originally targeted businessmen only, in keeping with the more traditional gender roles favored by Japanese society. In 2010, Tetsuya Akasako, head manager of Tokyo's Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510, told The New York Times, "Our main clients used to be salarymen who were out drinking and missed the last train." Other customers, after working late, would opt for a capsule in the city instead of making a long commute home to the suburbs.

Some capsule hotels are still geared toward one-night stays, so that you might be required to check out and then check back in to stay an additional night. As a Tokyoite, the first one I ever tried was in Shinjuku, home of the world's busiest train station. Besides the price (which remains as low as 3,610 yen, or $24, per weeknight), the main draw with Shinjuku Kuyakusho-mae Capsule Hotel was its location.

The hotel is right around the corner from Golden Gai, a famous warren of alleys with hole-in-the-wall bars, which travel host Anthony Bourdain and filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino have visited. It's also near Hanazono Shrine, which holds the bells that inspired the robot Baymax's face in the animated movie "Big Hero 6." The movie later spawned a Disney attraction that's exclusive to Tokyo.

Despite its convenient location, this particular hotel also straddles the Kabukicho nightlife district. Staying there taught me that capsule hotels can be as seedy as any other cheap hotel or motel. As I walked around outside, several pushy street touts each tried to lure me into a different hostess club. These were the kind of not-so-classy dives where you hear about customers being given a padded bill or served spiked drinks and flat-out robbed. When I got on the elevator for the hotel, I noticed a sign for a self-identified "shemale pub" named Alcazar downstairs, too. Turning on the TV in my capsule, I found that the only viewing option was Japan's pixelated porn, something a writer for The Atlantic magazine likewise experienced during his stay at another nearby capsule hotel back in 1994.

Though it somewhat defeats their purpose for budget travel, your best bet for comfort with capsule hotels might be one of the premium variety. The Bay Hotel Group and 9h Nine Hours chain offer capsules upwards of 6,000 yen (approximately $40) a night, and they both have branches catering to women. Nine Hours, which styles some of its locations as "sleep labs," furthermore bills itself as "Japan's first wellness capsule to offer sleep analysis services." The Narita Airport branch offers 24-hour check-in, and it's the only landside hotel on-site.

Hotels with saunas and public bathhouses can help you freshen up before you crawl into your capsule in Japanese-style pajamas. Capsule hotels are also convenient when you've got to be somewhere early in the morning, before the local trains start running. Time magazine, for instance, once named Japan's bustling seafood market, Tsukiji, the number one thing to do in Tokyo. If you wanted to catch the 5 a.m. tuna auction there, you'd have to line up around 3 a.m.

That's why I found myself squeezing into the capsule above at a hotel down the street from Tsukiji one night. This was before the tuna auctions and wholesale fish market relocated to Toyosu, leaving only the outer market to carry on the seafood tradition in Tsukiji. Long story short, I ended up pulling an all-nighter because the cramped capsule left me tossing and turning, unable to sleep even a few hours. That said, if you just need somewhere to put a roof over your head (and you don't mind possibly bumping your head), a capsule hotel could be worth it.