I stayed in a London sleeping pod
Capsule hotels are a cheap alternative to expensive accomodation in London for office workers.
Sawdah Bhaimiya
Workers who moved out of London for remote work are under pressure to come back to the office in the city, and some are choosing to stay in Japanese-inspired sleeping pods for just £30 ($40).
I travelled to Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London to spend a night in a newly opened capsule hotel, after two of my colleagues who live outside the city recommended staying there.
Zedwell Capsule Hotel, a brand owned by Criterion Capital, opened in September and offers nearly 1,000 capsules measuring 1 meter long, 1 meter wide, and 2 meters in depth — likely the smallest hotel rooms in London.
It has a rather unassuming exterior despite being located inside the historic London Pavilion building — originally built as a music hall in 1885. The entrance is around the corner of the busy station, through some black doors.
Private sleeping capsules alongside each other in Zedwell Capsule Hotel in London.
Sawdah Bhaimiya
The cost of staying in a hotel in Central London is staggering, sitting at an average of £265 per night in the third quarter of 2025, according to real estate firm Knight Frank. In comparison, the average daily rate of hotels across Europe was 125 euros in the summer, according to an analysis of over 600,000 reservations from 2,000 independent hotels by RoomRaccoon.
Criterion’s Head of Hotels Halima Aziz told me that the capsule hotel addresses a gap in the market between budget hostels and affordable accommodation.
“We’ve formed this sweet spot between the two. We’re not a budget hostel. We’re not coming in at a £15 rate, giving you a bunk bed in a steel room,” she said.
“When we decided to get into capsules, we really took inspiration from Asia, and the capsule concept was really born out of Japan as a response to very similar pressures we’re facing in London.”
In Japan, the first capsule hotel was built in the city of Osaka in 1979, primarily to serve as an inexpensive overnight option for salarymen who worked late and preferred to stay out drinking and socializing rather than spending more money commuting home.
It’s given rise to some capsule-style hotels in New York, from sleeping pods by Kama Central Park, to Nap York, a sleeping station with private pods for short naps or overnight stays.
Now that the concept has come to London, I was keen to see for myself what the British version has to offer.
Inside a sleeping capsule
Inside a sleeping capsule in Zedwell Capsule Hotel in London.
Sawdah Bhaimiya
It’s a Monday evening, and instead of my usual work-from-home routine, which involves preparing to go into the office the next day, I’m crawling into a brightly lit sleeping pod.
I roll down the garage-like shutters and lock it from the inside as I prepare to sleep. My head is just inches beneath the ceiling of my pod, which has a light dimmer, two clothing hooks, an air purifier, a wide mirror stretching along the head of the…
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