A Japanese hotel lets you stay for just $1 but there's a very strange catch.
When going on holiday, sorting out transport is only half of the battle. Finding that perfect place to stay is just as stressful, and while some of us love trawling through Booking.com or Airbnb to find that diamond in the rough of yellowed pillows and hairs in the plug hole, others can't stand it.
With more options than ever when it comes to places to stay, we can pick everything from glamping pods to lighthouses, boats to igloos. It's usually budget constraints that ultimately decide where we stay, but for the bargain price of $1, one hotel has it nailed.
Don't worry, this isn't a room from The Shining, 1408, or any of the other haunted hotels Stephen King writes about. Nor is it American Horror Story's Hotel Cortez. Still, this $1 hotel room does come with a catch. See, we knew it was too good to be true.
If you've got a trip to Japan coming up and are looking for somewhere unusual to stay other than the hotel that's run by robots, Fukuoka's Asahi Ryokan dis definitely unique. Run by Tetsuya Inoue and owned by his grandmother, the young entrepreneur wondered how he could improve the economy in this tech-savvy age of innovation.
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As reported by CNN Travel, Inoue decided to charge guests the bargain basement price of just $1 to stay at Asahi Ryokan, under the condition they have to live stream their entire stay.
Paying just ¥100 (around $1), guests are subjected to 24/7 live streaming, although Inoue explained it's not as invasive as you'd think.
The feed is video-only, so all your conversations are kept private, you're allowed to turn off the lights, and the bathroom area is thankfully off limits when it comes to cameras. It's definitely a bizarre idea, but we've got to hand it to Inoue for trying something different.
Revealing the method behind the madness, Inoue explained: "This is a very old ryokan and I was looking into a new business model. Our hotel is on the cheaper side, so we need some added value, something special that everyone will talk about."
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A sign warns not to engage in 'lewd' acts, while guests are also told not to accidentally reveal private information like passports and credit cards.
As for the kind of clientele that walk through the door, Inoue mused: "Young people nowadays don’t care much about the privacy. Some of them say it’s OK to be [watched] for just one day."
Despite the $1 rooms clearly running at a loss, Inoue hoped to monetize the idea through YouTube. The YouTube Channel "New One Dollar Hotel" (we're not sure what happened to the old one) hasn't posted in a while, and even when it does, the videos don't seem to be about the hotel at all.
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There's not much of an online presence for Asahi Ryokan, but the good people over at SoraNews24 actually stayed there. In a review from Japanese-language reporter Masanuki, he described the hotel as "a totally normal Japanese-style guestroom, with tatami reed flooring, a folded futon sleeping mat, a low table, a TV, and a hot water kettle." Saying it looked like somewhere a student or someone starting their first job might live, you can't argue with the price. It's just the constant feeling of being watched you need to get used to.