Capsule Hotels

Wellington is a compact city. This hotel takes the idea one step further.

Guests sleep in individual capsules: enclosed pods with a mattress, a reading light and somewhere to charge a phone. Bathrooms, lounge space and luggage storage are shared, and quiet hours keep the sleeping floors calm.

The format borrows from Japan and suits a capital where plenty of visitors stay a single night. A ferry across Cook Strait in the morning, a concert, a meeting near the waterfront. It is a practical base, not a destination in itself.

First Cabin started in Japan with a simple pitch. Take the capsule hotel, give it more headroom, and lay it out like the premium cabin of a long-haul flight.

So the rooms are cabins rather than stacked tubes. You can stand up beside the bed, a panel closes the space off, and the room types borrow airline names. Large shared baths, in the Japanese tradition, replace private bathrooms.

Sanjo is one of central Kyoto's main east–west streets. Covered shopping arcades and the Kamo River are both within walking distance.

Rosenthaler Platz is the corner where Mitte runs into Prenzlauer Berg. The Circus has been part of it for years, first as a hostel and later with a hotel across the street.

Small rooms are the point. The hostel side offers shared dorms and compact private rooms. The hotel keeps its rooms tight and well planned, and puts the effort into good beds and a busy ground floor.

It sits in this category for the reason capsule hotels exist: keep the sleeping space small and a central address stays within reach. Trams and the U-Bahn stop at the square.