Trips worth sleeping through
The Cabin bus offers a dream of a ride.
SAN FRANCISCO – There’s a memory-foam mattress, a personal reading light and a curtain for privacy. Visitors leave their shoes in black fabric bags, sip chamomile tea before tucking in for the night and chat over coffee in the morning. It might sound like the Ritz-Carlton, but it’s actually Cabin, an upscale overnight bus for passengers who’d rather make use of their non-waking hours for travel — or just don’t like to fly. Guests go to sleep in one end of California and, if they indeed have a restful night, wake up 400 miles away in another.
Cabin makes daily trips between San Francisco and Los Angeles and offers riders the chance to spend the night in individual sleep pods on board.
The company calls its buses “moving hotels,” inspired by sleeper trains in Europe. It operates three buses that together have made hundreds of trips since service began in July, ferrying 2,000 passengers between Northern and Southern California.
I spent a night traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles to find out if sleeping on a real mattress was worth the trip’s one-way price tag — which ranges from $85 to $115 depending on the day of the week.
The first thing that stands out about the double-decker bus is its clean, modern look — with wood floors and paneling, white sheets and sleek lounge seats illuminated by dim lighting. The private “cabins,” located on the upper level, are relatively roomy, with almost enough space to sit up and sufficient leg room for a person as tall as 6-foot-5 to stretch out. Each comes with a privacy curtain, air conditioning, electrical outlets, USB ports, bottled water, earplugs, a moist face towelette and a bag to hold your shoes.
Downstairs, a lounge area provides a place for riders to chat over tea or coffee while two attendants are on hand for any requests. No children younger than 10 are allowed on board, and Cabin has a strict one-person-per-bed rule. Obstacles such as snoring passengers are hit-or-miss — though I didn’t encounter any.
I shared my journey with about eight other passengers, although the bus has room for 24. I was struck by the strangeness of the experience — here I was in my pajamas, talking to a group of people I just met while a reallife version of Harry Potter’s Night Bus hurtled us through the California night. But it was comforting, with the sense of a home away from home and the communal feel of a giant sleepover.
Actual sleeping was another issue. Even on the comfortable mattress, I felt every bump in the road, despite drinking the melatonin-infused Dream Water that is included.
But for other passengers, including Samad Nasserian, falling asleep wasn’t a problem.
“When I arrive, I’m actually refreshed,” Nasserian said. “When I fly, I feel exhausted, even if it’s a short trip.”
Nasserian, 37, runs an online business and frequently travels between San Francisco and Los Angeles for work. He says he has made 14 trips on Cabin since September and prefers the service to flying — even though he has racked up enough airline miles to get free flights.
“If I wanted to fly, it would take me roughly four hours door to door,” Nasserian said. “This happens during the day, when you could get work done, exercise or do other things. The benefit of Cabin is that you just have a normal day, and then at 10:30, I leave my home … find my cabin and fall asleep.”
Even for people who don’t make the trip as frequently as Nasserian, there are benefits to a service such as Cabin. Driving between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area can take five to eight hours depending on traffic; flying might require dealing with flight delays and baggage restrictions. Amtrak train rides take 10-12 hours, and other bus companies, such as Greyhound or Megabus, have cheaper rates than Cabin but don’t offer beds.
The value of Cabin isn’t necessarily cost, though it is cheaper than flying in the night before and spending money on a hotel for people such as Nasserian, who have early-morning meetings. Instead, its advantage is time and comfort — allowing busy people to spend their productive hours working and their non-productive hours traveling.
For riders such as Odile Bouchard, 23, a first-time Cabin user traveling to Los Angeles on vacation, that description was appealing.
“It seemed like a new, modern way to travel — kind of futuristic,” Bouchard said. “I’ve traveled in night trains before, and the beds aren’t nearly as comfortable there — and you’re squeezed four people in a cabin.”
Tom Currier, Cabin’s 26-year-old CEO, already has plans to expand, seeing demand in 240 “high-volume” travel routes around the country.
“We took inspiration from hotels we love … but also looked at older, luxurious forms of transportation such as airships, sleeper trains and ocean liners,” Currier said.
I was struck by the strangeness of the experience — here I was in my pajamas, talking to a group of people I just met. But it also was comforting, with the sense of a home away from home and the communal feel of a giant sleepover.