Road Tripping With Cabin, the 'Moving Hotel'

People take 48,000+ daily trips between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Most drive, others fly, and the rest go via motorcoach or railroad train. 1 such omnibus option is Cabin, which takes the regular route trip up a notch. Co-founders Tom Currier and Gaetano Crupi run across information technology as a "moving hotel" and part of a bigger vision to connect walkable cities. It's the new slo-mo coastal commute, and PCMag tested it out.

10 p.one thousand.
I'g at Palisades Park, overlooking Santa Monica Pier, and my ride just pulled up. It's a Van Hool-made luxury jitney, highly modified with blacked-out windows and 24 Japanese-style sleep pods, including ane that'south ADA-accessible. Information technology will bulldoze through the night, reaching San Francisco by sunrise.

10:thirty p.m.
Connected Traveler The other passengers are arriving and checking in with onboard "dream attendant" Amber. Like nearly of the other Cabin attendants (aka concierges), Amber is moonlighting from her regular gig as an air flight attendant. She'due south very friendly but gently directs everyone upstairs to pick a sleep cabin and start to wind downwardly. It's articulate this isn't a party bus (the pre-board email said no alcohol or other mind-altering substances allowed), merely a slumber service—as evidenced by the low lighting and sleep aids on each pillow: ear plugs and melatonin-infused h2o. I'm wary of such things then don't accept either, simply I observe many do, and are rapidly snoozing.

Cabin interior

10:45 p.m.
Everyone else appears to be mid-to-belatedly 20s, and whispering in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, and Swedish) as they get ready for bed. The ii supernaturally attractive humans in the side by side pods to mine are filming each other with a loftier-terminate digital moving picture camera. I assume they are vloggers doing a Motel story. I find out the adjacent morning, when we share Instagram handles, that they are Megan Young, Miss World 2022, and Mikael Daez, a well-known player from the Philippines; both accept huge online followings.

11 p.m.
We're nigh to depart, and I'thou having a mini-claustrophobia meltdown inside the pod. It's (much) smaller than it looks online. There's plenty of stretch-out room (I'1000 5 human foot 5 inches, and it's designed to accommodate half dozen'3") merely a very constricted vertical elevation. I tin't sit up and, with the privacy curtain closed, it'south rather tight and nighttime, relieve for the USB-attached reading lite. However, the pillow, linens and comforter are dreamy—they're manifestly the same as the ones used by the Ritz Carlton—so I parcel myself into a cocoon and endeavour to slumber.

Cabin interior

2 a.m.
I wake up subsequently the bus hits a very bumpy lane on the freeway; the jitney is rattling unnervingly. I pretzel myself out of the lesser pod and make my way downstairs. Amber, the attendant, stays up all night, making sure everyone, including the driver, is alright. I sit with her at one of 2 lounge tables. I really want soothing herbal tea, but it seems the battery pack for the hot water drinkable machine is out of power. There's fast Wi-Fi, though, and so I catch up on some piece of work.

As I head back upwards the twisty staircase to try and slumber again, Amber says: "I've never seen anyone bring a robe to Cabin; what a great thought!" I smiling ruefully, look down at my blue Brooks Brothers dressing gown and boarding school rugby socks, and realize I'thousand not exactly the target demographic. Everyone upstairs stripped down to low maintenance t-shirts, shorts, or a yoga/lounge outfit before crashing.

5 a.thou.
We arrive in San Francisco and park at Bayside Lot, nether the Bay Bridge, a (handy) block from the Embarcadero offices of Google and Mozilla. Everyone else is still comatose. Bister arranges breakfast snack bars in the lounge. I pop outside, still in my robe, and take some pictures, to the surprise of Silicon Valley cube-dwellers cycling past to work before sunrise.

Cabin interior

5:30 a.grand.
I'thou struggling to discover a identify to get ready for the twenty-four hours. There'south no privacy onboard, apart from the slumber motel itself, and merely a circus acrobat could get changed in that tight infinite. The bathroom is tiny and there's no shower. I exercise my all-time but am a bit grumpy. This is not a service for people who like to accept freshly blown out locks or unwrinkled clothes on a hanger before a full day's work in a new metropolis.

6:30 a.m.
All the xx-somethings are awake. No one else complains about the shower facilities. In fact, well-nigh announced to be staying in whatever they slept in, adding a shirt and jeans on summit, and smoothing unruly hair down with h2o. I remember my far-off EuroRail pupil days, dossing downwards in Parisian hostels, with wry wistfulness.

half dozen:45 a.chiliad.
I chat with my fellow passengers in the lounge before nosotros all disembark. Peradventure because it's August, only they're mostly tourists rather than tech types shuttling upward and down the coast for work. Ryuta, from Japan, was simply in Las Vegas, and so L.A. He read about Cabin in a Japanese mag, and wondered if it was like the "midnight buses from Osaka to Tokyo, or capsule hotels." He'south clearly impressed at the upscale wait and feel of Cabin and said he'd come back if he ever finds himself in this part of the earth over again. An industrial design educatee from Taiwan, meanwhile, said he got a good night's sleep, and would utilise Cabin again, too. Megan and Mikael are talking to their camera, plotting the mean solar day alee with enthusiasm.

Cabin interior

seven a.m.
The other passengers ask me what I'one thousand doing on Cabin. I say I'm in San Francisco to interview Henry Hu, founder of robot barista Buffet X, and to exercise a story on doc.ai, a new natural language A.I. bio-genomics health mobile platform. Everyone is silent, and I experience hopelessly grownup. I grab my battered brown leather overnight bag and head outside. I wanted to talk to the artfully tattooed pair from Sweden simply they're outside, smoking Camel cigarettes, and clearly in dire need of espresso.

x a.thou. Interview with Cabin CEO and Co-Founder Tom Currier
I come across Currier, Cabin'due south co-founder CEO, at nearby breakfast-joint Crossroads, a cool San Francisco training cafe run by the Delancey Street Foundation aimed at getting people who have hit hard times back on the road again. Currier, 26, is a serial entrepreneur and dropped out of Stanford to become a Thiel Fellow. He founded his showtime startups while in middle school (baking breadstuff, fly-fishing ties, and digital photograph-scanning) then started a solar energy company. But he is best known for Campus Co-Living, a shared housing venture, which was a great thought, simply sadly closed in 2022.

Cabin Co-founders Tom Currier and Gaetano Crupi

Currier met his Cabin co-founder Gaetano Crupi at Stanford. Crupi has quite a back story, too. He's a quondam Goldman Sachs banker turned gaming entrepreneur turned video producer (Beyonce's "Motion Your Body" video and Michelle Obama's "Allow'southward Move!" project).

The ii co-founders initially tested Cabin equally SleepBus, but later upgraded the idea and raised $3.3 million in seed funding in June from investors including Founders Fund, SV Angel, Abstraction Holdings and 1517 Fund. Cabin formally launched in July.

Here are excerpts from our conversation:

Firstly, why LA to San Francisco?
LA to San Francisco is one of the busiest corridors that is not well-served and is the perfect time/distance for an overnight experience. We launched simply over a month ago, and 300 people have traveled with the states to date. We're looking at other journeys, only it needs to be long plenty for the sleep-through-the-night concept.

In its earlier incarnation, SleepBus, tickets sold out in three days and y'all had a 20,000-person waitlist. But press reports said it was more of a "rolling communal slumber party." Is that why you upgraded the service?
Yes. Well, Cabin is a "moving hotel" and SleepBus was more of a "moving hostel." We tested the concept under that brand, and information technology gave usa a year to develop a more premium feel of traveling while sleeping.

Was your sleeping compartment inspiration Cary Grant in Hitchcock'due south North past Northwest, Marilyn Monroe in Some Like information technology Hot, Japanese pod hotels, or something else?
We were inspired by The Pod sheathing hotel in Singapore, and the coaches that rock bands utilise, but actually, it's more considering one of my favorite movies growing upwardly was Disney's Howl'southward Moving Castle. This magical sorcerer has a castle that can move while he sleeps, he can set information technology to go wherever he wants, and he'due south teleported there.

Beautiful. And then, how much does the service cost? On the site information technology says starting at $115 each style. Are you planning seasonal lull discounts?
We might experiment with other pricing, only like hotels which are more than expensive on weekends, due to higher demand. We did pricing perception studies and, nether $100, guests presume information technology won't be a proficient experience. We're trialing $115 each way for at present.

Are you considering upgrading still further to attract professionals who are older than your current demographic?
Yes, our ambition is to create a truthful end-to-end hotel experience so that people feel zero friction traveling regionally. We look forward to what'due south to come.

Looking at your other startups, particularly Campus Co-Living, is Cabin office of a larger shared experiences movement?
Yes, I'm really interested in building and connecting walkable cities and changing the paradigm of where nosotros choose to live, work, and travel. Cabin is the showtime step towards that, solving the transportation upshot.

Finally, are you concerned nigh competition from Elon Musk's proposed 760mph Hyperloop?
I remember infrastructure in the The states is pretty difficult to alter. We should take a functioning, flexible, train system— like Europe—where you can simply hop on and off betwixt cities, but we don't. So nosotros felt the most practical solution is to utilise the US highways, particularly for the future, when we have high-speed democratic vehicles, in dedicated lanes.

Cheers for meeting up. I'g off to relish a day'due south work in San Francisco earlier heading back to Motel tonight.

9:30 p.m.
After a very long twenty-four hours of doing tech interviews, I head dorsum to the parking lot nigh the Bay Bridge. Cabin has been there all day. Tonight'southward Concierge, Katelyn, has just arrived, and is setting everything upward for the journey down south. A Japanese camera crew is hither from national broadcaster NHK. I talk briefly to their agency chief off camera, letting her know how to maneuver into the pod and providing a caveat on the bath door lock, which is at present apparently cleaved.

10 p.m.
Dorsum in the sleep pod, well-nigh to crash. Lights out are scheduled at xi:20 p.m. after Cabin has safely departed. Until then, each pod has a line of LED lights that reflect in the mirror at the end, so I burrow under the soft duvet and block them out. I must have passed out instantly, as I never heard my boyfriend passengers head upstairs or Cabin hit the freeway.

5 a.thou.
Early on Friday morning traffic is bad. We're refueling somewhere off the I-5 freeway but still approximately 1.5 hours from L.A. I know what this means; we're going to be caught in morning commute hell. Still the view of the Southern California hills equally the sun comes upward is a glorious reminder of road trip pleasures.

Cabin

vii:14 a.m.
Gridlock on the freeway. Katelyn, the concierge, is already in contact with CEO Tom Currier, who is "re-computing routes to optimize in real time," which is pretty cool. She grabs the remote, which switches the night-time green lights to day-vivid white and heads upstairs to wake everyone up.

8 a.m.
Finally! Palm copse and bounding main breezes. We're back at Palisades Park in Santa Monica. My co-slumber companions on this leg of the journey are still all twenty-somethings, but now mostly US nationals. Some are heading to UCLA/USC dorms early on, others a weekend wedding. They all enjoyed the experience, and would have Motel once again.

Would I? Personally, probably not. I need a few more five-star comforts: shower, hair dryers, clothes on a hanger, dressing area. My youthful back-packing days are now firmly, just fondly, in the rear-view mirror. But if you're a xx-something who loves an adventure, a road trip meet with agreeing types passing through livable cities, Cabin looks like the perfect way to travel.