Next time you’re considering your hotel choices, you might want to think about jail as an option. A growing number of former prisons are now being converted to accommodate a different kind of overnight guest…you.
In Australia, Pentridge prison in Victoria was one of the country’s biggest prisons and the former home of the some of the country’s worst criminals. Although the last prisoners left 20 years ago, for about $170 a night you can check it out yourself and sleep in one of the original cells–that is, if you can fall asleep. Rumor has it that the place is haunted.
In Istanbul, there’s the Four Seasons Hotel–another former prison. And what’s fascinating is that in the renovated hotel suites, you can still read the prisoners’ complaints carved into the walls.
In the U.S., there’s Alcatraz in San Francisco. The former maximum security prison kept prisoners like Al Capone and Robert “Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud. Today, it hosts $45 night tours and has had overnight events. For instance, on Halloween last year the visitors paid $666 to sleep in the actual cell and watch the recreation of the prison’s historical events.
In Boston, there’s another former prison–it used to be known as the Charles Street Jail. It’s now called, appropriately, the Liberty Hotel.
And in Japan, there’s the Okinawa Prison–it’s actually a jail-themed hostel–with barbed wire, iron bars, and all the usual prison amenities, at just $46 a night.
The one thing all of these hotels have in common is that guests check in, and they still check out.
Alcatraz
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