This article probably “should” be about pandas, diving, hiking, skiing or one of any other 10 adventures we’ve had in the last 2 months, but I’ve never believed in “should”. So instead, here’s my ranking on the places that I’ve slept so far on these adventures and a few fun adventure pictures.
11. Airplane
So airplane is maybe not the right way to describe it. More accurately: economy airplane on an overnight flight. This takes the cake for the worst sleeping accommodations. Minimal leg room, cramped space, many people packed in around you, and the bonus of pressurization to make you even more dehydrated. Blood pooling in the legs, not a lot of space to stretch, no breaks. Ear plugs, eye mask, compression socks are all borderline required for this to begin to be reasonable. Sometimes it’s required though, and I had a good time avoiding jet lag by using the Timeshifter app that suggests when to sleep in the days leading up to the flight. This was the first sleep of our adventure for our flight from Chicago to Tokyo to start our trip in Japan.
10. Bus
The other one in the class of “sitting sleeper” and the slightly better one. More leg room, seats go back much further, density of people is lower. Eye mask and ear plugs required. The mandatory stops every couple of hours are nice during the day but overnight they really cut into solid sleep time. It didn’t help that the toilet was right behind me and it had to be plunged approximately 5 times throughout the night, with the driver pulling over each time to plunge it. We tried our luck with an overnight bus traveling to the southern beaches of Thailand but would look for a flight next time instead.
9. Train
Let me start by saying that I love trains. The efficiency and reliability of trains is a wonder to behold. Fun to ride on, easy to use, almost always close to on time. The train arriving in Bangkok at 5:00 didn’t help but was not the entire story. The sleeper train on standard rail however, is the worst I’ve experienced of the lay down class of sleeping accommodations. The motion wasn’t quite rhythmic enough to be ignored, it was incredibly loud, and the bright room light never turned off. Ear plugs and eye mask helped for sure but I maintain this as the worst lay down sleep option. Thailand’s train-preneurs who hop on at a stop to sell their wares and hop off at the next stop are hard at work even starting at 4:00am which is just far too early to be buying snacks.
8. Party hostel
In retrospect, there were clues that this was going to be not the place for us. The hostel served a free beer daily to every person who stayed there, and it was only $13/night in Tokyo, Japan. The ranking here is heavily influenced by my specific experience of being woken up in the middle of the night to an uninvited guy crawling into my bed. Upon asking “what the hell” I was met with a blank stare and “is this floor 3?”. Spoilers: it was not floor 3. As I write this, I think that floor 3 was the women’s floor, and that explains so much about this experience. Somewhat surprisingly, no ear plugs or eye mask were required here.
7. Capsule hotel without ear plugs
This one gets its own special listing. In Okinawa, Japan, I was excited to try out the famous Japanese capsule hotels. I went into the night thinking “oh our room is only half full it’s not a big deal”. Oh how wrong I was. 12 people is still a lot of moving and leaving in the middle of the night, with my bed being the one right by the door, I was woken up every time someone came or went. To end the night, an alarm went off seemingly forever (but in actuality like 45 minutes) and kept me from sleeping in as late as I wanted to. Eye mask not required but ear plugs for sure.
6. Hard mattress in hotel room
When staying in cheap hotels, it’s always a tossup on how nice the mattress will be. Sitting down on the bed is now the first thing we always do to determine how the night is going to go. Sometimes it’s like a rock. I sometimes think a rock would be preferable because then it wouldn’t make me *think* it was a bed. These experiences are always multiple times waking up in the middle of the night to move to a new position when various body parts fall asleep.
5. Small room on a boat
In addition to trains, I love water. Always have, always will. Boats combine that with sleeping to top the “moving accommodations” category. Quad room on the bottom of the boat near the engine room. Going into this, I knew the ear plugs were going to be required, and they made it much better. There were four of us in the room which was fine. The ac did not penetrate the curtain around the bed leaving me sticky and soaked in sweat by the morning. This was the sleeping arrangement for the first night of our diving liveaboard in Thailand. Luckily, there were other options on the boat (see #3).
4. Capsule hotel with ear plugs
Luckily for us, we stayed in the capsule hotel more than one night, and thus the redemption arc. Sweet, sweet bliss of silence and the roaring of blood in the ears relaxes and soothes me to sleep. When all I can hear is the sound of my blood rushing in my ears the capsule hotel rises up to number 4.
3. Sun deck on a boat
In contrast to the quad room, the sun deck of the boat was nice and cool. Being able to watch the moon and stars until I fell asleep was glorious. No ear plugs or mask needed. It had the downside of other folks being up later and smoking on the front of the boat, but wake up for everyone was at 5:45, so everyone went to sleep relatively early.
2. Normal mattress in a hotel
It’s always nice to check into a hotel at the end of a long day and lay on the bed and sink down just a little bit. After the ups and downs of different sleeping arrangements, I really appreciate a soft, comfortable bed. Something that I, in the past, took for granted, feels like the nicest treat after a week of bad sleep. Ironically enough, the picture here is the same hotel as the hotel with the hard mattresses but a different room.
1. Anywhere after being out in the hot sun all day
This doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone, but for me, the sun just knocks me out. If I’m out in the sun and it’s hot for more than a couple hours, sitting up or laying down I will pass out literally anywhere and have a lil nap.
Thus concludes my sleep experiences. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter! We’re off to trek to Everest Base Camp now so we’ll try out some new sleeping options along the trek and report back in a month!
Leave a Reply