Sleep Inside a Bookshelf at This Japanese Hostel

Travel News

Is there anything more comforting than ending your day dozing off in bed with a good book in
hand, as it eases you to sleep? Now, there’s some travel lodging dedicated to that exact at-home comfort.

Book and Bed is a part-library, part-hostel, part-five-year-old-hiding-under-the-covers-and-reading-with-a-flashlight that nearly replicates this experience. The 30-room hostel in Tokyo lets guests sleep in cozy cubbies hidden betwixt library shelves and books. It’s a “book accommodation” in every sense.

But unlike most hostels which advertise their comfort, this place doesn’t advocate a good night’s sleep. “There are no comfortable mattresses, fluffy pillows nor lightweight and warm down duvets,” which, by hostel standards, is normal, considering a good night’s sleep in a hostel generally involves a couple’s muffled boning.

Instead, the hostel promises a special experience for book lovers—the treasured pastime of
reading, with eyelids drooping, until that blissful instant of falling asleep. But bibliophiles beware—the snug rooms, the largest of which is 6 feet long and 4 feet wide, will probably make you feel like a literal bookworm.

“Compact Rooms” start at $32/night, and each includes only a mattress and a reading light. So if your dream is to sleep surrounded by books— or as if you’re in the dresser drawer of a library—this may be a dream come true.

Tom is a travel writer, part-time hitchhiker, and he’s currently trying to imitate Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? but with more sunscreen and jorts.

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