The Tiny House Blog has featured the Yotel airport hotel pods before and this time I had a chance to stay in one at Heathrow Airport in London. These convenient sleeping pods located in London, Amsterdam and New York give you the option for a more peaceful layover while combining space saving designs, Japanese esthetics and a hint of Star Trek.
Yotel offers several sizes of these transit rooms including double, twin, bunk style and Standard, which features a single bed, but more space. At the Heathrow Yotel there were 32 pods built into the hotel, a Command Center where you check in and order food and coffee and a small waiting room. Each Yotel offers free WiFi and free hot drinks. For even more convenience, the Yotel was located right at the front of Terminal 4 so you don’t need a boarding pass or have to go through security to make it to your room in the middle of the night. Yotel rooms can be booked by the hour, so if you have an eight to twelve hour layover it’s a nice place to get some shuteye.
My particular pod was meant for just one person and contained a twin bed built into the wall, a TV and remote, folding desk and chair, a mirror and luggage rack and a great little wet bath with toilet, tiny sink and a wonderful shower with a rain shower head. All this fitting into a space the size of a walk-in closet. The pod was tiny, so having just one piece of luggage was perfect. Any more and it would be too crowded. There was a take-out menu, a phone for ordering food, a glass for water, soap and shampoo, towels, sheets, fluffy pillows and a feather comforter. A privacy screen was available for the window in the door and I really got a kick out of the small, folding chair that hung on the back of the door.
The best part of the Yotel was not only the very comfortable bed, but the hot shower and the free cappuccino the next morning. These pods are not cheap (6 hours cost about $70), but the sleep and shower put me in a much better frame of mind for a 10-hour flight.
Even if you don’t get to spend many hours in these cool little pods you can still pretend you’re a member of the USS Enterprise bridge crew.
Photos by Christina Nellemann
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]