This sleeping bus is another attempt to make travel more comfortable

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Cabin looks like a band tour bus and is filled with beds.

Image: sasha lekach/mashable

By Sasha Lekach2017-07-02 16:05:00 UTC

Maybe you're reading this while slogging through soul-crushing traffic during the long holiday weekend. You might wish you could just curl up with that book stowed away in the trunk or catch up on some sleep from a tiring week at work. 

None of that is happening on this road trip, but when Cabin, a sleeping bus, launches later this month, getting a full night's sleep in an actual bed while riding on the freeway won't be just a dream.

The special double-decker buses will take paying passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles starting July 14 on tour buses re-outfitted with 24 beds, or sleeping pods, and a lounge space, bathroom, and, of course, Wi-Fi.

Cabin CEO Tom Currier tests out the beds on the bus.

Image: sasha lekach/mashable

Cabin co-founder and CEO Tom Currier calls the buses a "moving hotel" since "buses have such a negative brand perception." 

While hotel might be a stretch for the stacked rows of sleep pods that provide 36 inches of overhead clearance, it is a full bed with a fluffy pillow, hotel-style mattress and comfy comforter, along with a reading light, outlet, AC vent, window, and a privacy curtain for good measure. It looks a lot like these sleeping nooks on long-haul Virgin Australia flights. 

During a tour of the bus led by Currier, he made it clear this isn't a packed-in-like-sardines experience. "This is the polar opposite of a bus," he said. While it's technically very much still a bus, walking through the lounge and up the stairs to the beds, it feels something like a cross between a dorm room and a first-class luxury plane cabin.

Cabin's buses (the San Francisco startup has built three so far) are not a cheap Megabus alternative to travel the nearly 400 miles between the two major cities, but for $115 you get some shut-eye in a real bed and get to wake up at your destination. The bus leaves at 11 p.m. and arrives by 7 a.m. But you can keep sleeping until 9 a.m. if you need a few more Zs.

Sleep and ride in the two levels of sleeping pods.

Image: sasha lekach/mashable

Cabin, which until a few days ago was known as SleepBus, was a hit last year with three days of sold-out test drives up and down California. From the success of those trips with more than 20,000 people on a wait list for what was then only $45 trips, Cabin became a full-fledged hospitality transportation company with more than $3 million in seed funding announced last month.

Based on how the SF-LA trips go in the coming weeks, more routes could come to New York-Boston, Boston-Washington, D.C., and NYC-D.C. next. 

Meanwhile, Currier is having fun hosting a slumber party on wheels. He said during a trial drive last year, he was up until 3 a.m. in the lounge chatting with a group of passengers. A Harry Potter-themed Night Bus ride is in the works. 

Coffee, tea, and conversation is served in the lounge.

Image: sasha lekach/mashable

For those who truly want their eight hours, each pod comes with socks, a water bottle, ear plugs and Dream Water — a melatonin-infused concoction that claims to facilitate sleep.

Heading down Highway 101, which Currier said is a somewhat smoother, slower ride than the well-worn, speedy I-5 truck route, is "soothing." He compared it to the effect of a drive around the block to lull a baby to sleep.

Something about being in a moving vehicle seems to calm people down — and the whole laying down in a real bed thing helps, too. Just don't get up too quick, there's a hard ceiling just above your head. This is a bus after all.

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