I stayed in a London sleeping pod

Employees who moved out of London for distant work are underneath strain to come back again to the workplace within the metropolis, and a few are selecting to remain in Japanese-inspired sleeping pods for simply £30 ($40).

I travelled to Piccadilly Circus within the coronary heart of London to spend an evening in a newly opened capsule resort, after two of my colleagues who dwell outdoors the town really helpful staying there.

Zedwell Capsule Lodge, a model owned by Criterion Capital, opened in September and presents practically 1,000 capsules measuring 1 meter lengthy, 1 meter huge, and a pair of meters in depth — possible the smallest resort rooms in London.

It has a moderately unassuming exterior regardless of being positioned contained in the historic London Pavilion constructing — initially constructed as a music corridor in 1885. The doorway is across the nook of the busy station, by means of some black doorways.

The price of staying in a resort in Central London is staggering, sitting at a mean of £265 per evening within the third quarter of 2025, based on actual property agency Knight Frank. As compared, the typical day by day price of motels throughout Europe was 125 euros in the summertime, based on an evaluation of over 600,000 reservations from 2,000 impartial motels by RoomRaccoon.

Criterion’s Head of Lodges Halima Aziz informed me that the capsule resort addresses a niche out there between funds hostels and inexpensive lodging.

“We have shaped this candy spot between the 2. We’re not a funds hostel. We’re not coming in at a £15 price, providing you with a bunk mattress in a metal room,” she mentioned.

“Once we determined to get into capsules, we actually took inspiration from Asia, and the capsule idea was actually born out of Japan as a response to very related pressures we’re dealing with in London.”

In Japan, the primary capsule resort was constructed within the metropolis of Osaka in 1979, primarily to function a cheap in a single day choice for salarymen who labored late and most well-liked to remain out ingesting and socializing moderately than spending more cash commuting residence.

It is given rise to some capsule-style motels in New York, from sleeping pods by Kama Central Park, to Nap York, a sleeping station with personal pods for brief naps or in a single day stays.

Now that the idea has come to London, I used to be eager to see for myself what the British model has to supply.

It is a Monday night, and as a substitute of my ordinary work-from-home routine, which includes getting ready to enter the workplace the following day, I am crawling right into a brightly lit sleeping pod.

I roll down the garage-like shutters and lock it from the within as I put together to sleep. My head is simply inches beneath the ceiling of my pod, which has a light-weight dimmer, two clothes hooks, an air air purifier, a large mirror stretching alongside the pinnacle of the capsule, and charger sockets.

Though I can really feel my baggage — a backpack and tote bag — on the finish of my mattress, and the underside of my coat held on the hooks, I am stunned by how snug and comfortable the bedding is.

I change off the lights and noisy air air purifier and discover myself enveloped by pitch black and silence. It feels eerie, however with nothing to distract me, I go to sleep shortly.

Earlier within the day, I checked myself into the resort utilizing considered one of 4 kiosks, and as I roamed across the resort, I seen that the partitions had been painted black to match the outside — and there is not a single window in sight.

I rode as much as the primary ground and used a key card to entry my female-only dormitory. My capsule was considered one of seven stacked facet by facet or on prime of one another, and a few had been solely accessible through steps.

I discovered that regardless of the low preliminary price, there was a collection of extra facilities visitors will pay for, from an additional £10 to be in a female-only dormitory, to £8 for a padlock, and £15 to retailer baggage securely.

The resort had an unfinished really feel. The doorway was lined in scaffolding and the faint sound of drilling may very well be heard from contained in the constructing.

That is as a result of it’s “nonetheless underneath building,” Zedwell’s Normal Supervisor Greg Walsh informed me. The drilling sounds had been coming from underground the place a bigger reception was being constructed, with direct hyperlinks to Piccadilly Circus Station.

CEO Aziz confirmed that the constructing will not be full, including that the extra price for the feminine dorms was largely as a result of upgraded facilities, together with a towel contained in the pod and a female-only magnificence room full with hairdryers — though that is nonetheless underneath building and never presently accessible.

“In the end, if you happen to’re not simply focusing on the normal hostel market, and also you wish to widen entry, you might want to reply to individuals’s wants, and folks have wants for laundry, for magnificence, that would not usually be thought of,” she added.

Whereas exploring the constructing, I discovered shared bogs and showers with classical music enjoying inside, in addition to merchandising machines within the reception with snacks, drinks, slippers and eye masks amongst different gadgets.

I wandered out for dinner and with Oxford Circus, Leicester Sq., and Covent Backyard inside strolling distance, it wasn’t arduous to entertain myself.

Throughout my time within the resort, I found I used to be considered one of many working professionals within the constructing. I noticed a number of visitors arriving in fits and ties and carrying briefcases. One chef from Newcastle even informed me he paid a complete of £284 to remain within the resort for a fortnight to work in London.

Through the Covid-19 pandemic, many workplace employees in London moved out of the town, the place it was cheaper to hire or personal a house, as a result of distant and versatile working choices turning into a normality.

A 2021 report from Metropolis Corridor mentioned it was possible that London’s inhabitants fell through the pandemic. The variety of payrolled London workers dropped sharply by about 210,000 by November 2020, with the report citing that versatile work preparations made it simpler to maneuver out of the town.

The pattern endured, and by 2022, 43% of commuters lived over half-hour away from their office within the U.Ok., reflecting increased property costs in central areas, based on a report by business actual property agency CBRE which surveyed over 20,000 individuals globally.  

Moreover, CBRE discovered that 41% of individuals worldwide had been planning to maneuver to extra distant areas within the subsequent two years both in the identical metropolis or to a distinct metropolis.

Nevertheless, in 2025, there’s been a pointy recall in distant work choices with main corporations imposing return to workplace mandates in London from HSBC to JPMorgan, Amazon, Salesforce and John Lewis.

Zedwell’s Aziz mentioned one of many resort’s core demographics is younger professionals and hybrid employees who’re utilizing Zedwell as a “base within the metropolis” as a result of their versatile working patterns which require them to be within the workplace for a couple of days every week. Roughly 20% of the resort’s prospects are company employees, Aziz mentioned.

“The price of commuting from Oxford, Cambridge, metropolis facilities that are not accessible through the London Underground system, is kind of excessive,” she mentioned. “Our product is commonly cheaper than their commute or late-night journey residence.”

The return-to-office mandate has left employees who do not dwell in cities scrambling to seek out cheap methods of staying within the metropolis, with out having to resort to unattractive choices like hostels.

“The place they would not historically think about a hostel product, we recognized that they’d certainly think about a capsule resort, as a result of it gave that privateness,” Aziz added.

As a Londoner, my ordinary commute to the workplace lasts simply over half-hour, so the resort does not supply a lot by way of comfort for me, however I can see the attraction for these dwelling additional away from the town.

Once I awoke within the morning, I nearly forgot that I wasn’t in my mattress at residence. After a fast bathe, I obtained prepared inside my capsule earlier than heading out and becoming a member of the throng of commuters in central London.