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Like many others in this thread, I sleep very well in hotels. Usually better than at home. My best sleep comes when I'm camping though. This is definitely not

Like many others in this thread, I sleep very well in hotels. Usually better than at home. My best sleep comes when I'm camping though. This is definitely not a comfortable or familiar environment, but I still sleep very well and feel refreshed in the morning. That being said, I usually sleep terribly in friends' houses or AirBnBs.

ekianjo 11y ago
Maybe because hotels are usually "standard" and therefore fall in the bucket of "sleep as usual" ?
- MicroBerto 11y ago
  My theory is that hotels often have thick doors and very solid locks and deadbolts. Plus the added "security" of the front desk... Makes it feel more secure.
  - developer2 11y ago
    >> Plus the added "security" of the front desk... Makes it feel more secure. For me, there's also the fact that you are one unit out of very many within the hotel. Even if someone is going to be bold enough to break into a hotel room in the more "public environment", the odds are fairly low you'd be the victim from a pool of hundreds of rooms. Your stay is also brief, so you don't have a routine schedule a would-be criminal has time to study. Plus there's typically not going to be much worth stealing out of a hotel room anyway (wide screen TV, computers, etc). I've always felt fairly safe in large apartment/condo buildings. I've never lived on the ground floor, so it feels like the odds of someone entering the building (or climbing the outside), coming to my floor, and choosing my specific unit to break into are quite low. You're very unlikely to be targeted by outside strangers; and there is a much smaller pool of people who live in the building capable of targeting you. Three years ago I moved into an apartment with a street-level door. Basically a neighbourhood of townhouse-like buildings. It's been almost two years since I was burglarized while at work. I still don't sleep well anymore, with the ever-present feeling of dread that a nighttime home invasion is coming any day now. I can't leave the apartment for longer than 30 minutes at a time without expecting to come home to another completed burglary. I can't afford to move yet, but I can't wait for the day I go back to doubling my current rent to live in a higher class, 100+ dwelling building. I will probably never buy a house. As I get older and save for a down payment, I'm sure it will be for a condo. I don't care for condo associations with their politics and fees, and the fact you only own or semi-own a section of an entire building. But I would never feel safe in a house where I have only a single door sitting between myself and my things, and an entire city full of parasitic people.
    - solipsism 11y ago
      Shouldn't an entire suburb full of houses identical to your own yield the same peace of mind? Do you think being separated by walls instead of air makes a difference mentally?
      - pyre 11y ago
        When you're on the ground floor you are more likely to be targeted than when you're on the 40th floor.
        morgante 11y ago
        Oh no! You might get "targeted." How scary! This thread has been really illuminating for me. I didn't realize so many people were so afraid of "criminals" that they can't even get good sleep.
        developer2 11y ago
        Have you ever been burglarized by someone unknown and uncaught? The violation is extremely personal. These people watch you for days or weeks to ensure they know your routine. They know when you leave for work, and when you come home. They know you don't work Fridays. It could be a neighbour you've said hello to dozens of times, watching from their window. It could be a stranger who finds it worthwhile to sit in their car watching your home. You'll never know. Either way, they've invested time in observing you, and have specifically chosen you as their target. Yes, it makes you "targeted". When you come home to your back door broken open, and find $5000 worth of shit missing, and every drawer in your home opened and sifted through? When you can't possibly even know exactly what's missing. A month after the incident, you're still finding new things that were taken from you. It's not just about the stolen property. It's your entire personal space ripped apart. It's a form of psychological rape. Hope you get to experience that some day.
        morgante 11y ago
        > It's a form of psychological rape. Hope you get to experience that some day. Wow. I can understand why you might feel emotional about a robbery. I imagine it's very invasive. Given that, I cannot imagine why you would wish it on someone else. My point was that it's an irrational fear: you're likely not going to get robbed and it's not worth spending a bunch of time worry about it.
- mapgrep 11y ago
  I'd be curious if OP has a partner or roommate at home. When sleeping next to my spouse, I would venture there is some small level of stress associated with not wanting to roll into them, impede their movement, etc. Even just having someone else in the same apartment (different room) I recall being somewhat stressful. When you go from sharing a bed or dwelling to having a whole distinct hotel room to yourself, it can be very mentally relaxing, in my experience. (At least in short intervals; obviously I prefer having someone there with me long term. Although some couples sleep in separate rooms and report very good results!) Interesting phenomenon for sure.
  - tamana 11y ago
    Why do you fear disturbing your housemate but not your hotel neighbor?
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  I used to have some trouble sleeping in hotels for the first night, but now I don't see to have any difficulty. I think it's mostly due to having slept in a lot more hotels over the years, it now feels like a "normal" experience.
ghaff 11y ago
On the other hand, I very much identified with the article. For the first night or so in a new place, I commonly don't sleep well even if there aren't obvious travel-related factors (jet lag, shifted sleep hours, etc.) I adjust pretty quickly for the most part, but it commonly takes a day or two.
mhandley 11y ago
I always sleep badly the first night camping. After that I sleep really well, and it doesn't matter if the tent is in a different location or the weather changes or whatever.
Tenhundfeld 11y ago
I have similar great sleep when camping. There are lot of factors that may be involved. Exercise. When camping, I'm typically much more active during the day than my usual routine. This is especially true if I'm on a hiking trip, walking several miles each day. But even if we've setup a stationary camp, all of the little activities add up to a lot of movement. Lack of distractions/schedule. When camping, I typically just go to bed when I get tired, which is usually soon after it gets dark, and I wake up naturally, not to an alarm clock, typically with the sun. Cool, dark, and quiet. It's usually cool at night, very dark, and relatively quiet. That contributes to great sleep regardless of the environment. I've also had some of my worst sleep when camping. A couple of times when it was way, way colder than expected. It's hard to sleep when you're shivering. But mostly the problem is when it's too hot. I sleep terribly when it's warm, and I think that's true for many people. I also think it matters whether you're camping solo or in a group. When you're with a group, I think you instinctively feel safer, but I've had some bad nights camping solo. One night especially sticks out in my mind. I'd seen a black bear and a cub earlier in the day, across a stream. They were a safe distance away and probably didn't care about me at all. But all night, whenever I heard a noise, I'd spring up and question for the thousandth time if I hung my food far enough away. It's amazing how large and menacing an opossum or deer can sound walking through the underbrush. But the next night when I met up with my companions, I had the best sleep ever. :)
- agmcleod 11y ago
  In 2012, I went camping in mt tremblant mid september with my brother and his friends. The night we got there it rained hard. Saturday during the day was okay, but that night got super cold, around -1 degrees celsius. Plus we could hear wolves howling across the lake. Not the best of nights sleep. I do tend to get nervous of nature at night when I'm camping, but love my experiences during the day. So yeah I completely understand what you mean :)
l33tbro 11y ago
Perhaps you think you sleep better camping because you are usually so tuckered out from walking around in the outdoors.
rokhayakebe 11y ago
Re: Camping. Evolution? Genuine question.
elwell 11y ago
Re: Camping Maybe more oxygen rich environment?
dwyerm 11y ago
For me, camping usually meant being somewhere over 10,000ft AMSL. My altitude sickness manifests as insomnia. So, my first night was always a -- nearly literal -- nightmare.
cesarbs 11y ago
My first night in any hotel is almost always terrible. But on subsequent nights I sleep like a baby.

ekianjo 11y ago

Maybe because hotels are usually "standard" and therefore fall in the bucket of "sleep as usual" ?

MicroBerto 11y ago
My theory is that hotels often have thick doors and very solid locks and deadbolts. Plus the added "security" of the front desk... Makes it feel more secure.
- developer2 11y ago
  >> Plus the added "security" of the front desk... Makes it feel more secure. For me, there's also the fact that you are one unit out of very many within the hotel. Even if someone is going to be bold enough to break into a hotel room in the more "public environment", the odds are fairly low you'd be the victim from a pool of hundreds of rooms. Your stay is also brief, so you don't have a routine schedule a would-be criminal has time to study. Plus there's typically not going to be much worth stealing out of a hotel room anyway (wide screen TV, computers, etc). I've always felt fairly safe in large apartment/condo buildings. I've never lived on the ground floor, so it feels like the odds of someone entering the building (or climbing the outside), coming to my floor, and choosing my specific unit to break into are quite low. You're very unlikely to be targeted by outside strangers; and there is a much smaller pool of people who live in the building capable of targeting you. Three years ago I moved into an apartment with a street-level door. Basically a neighbourhood of townhouse-like buildings. It's been almost two years since I was burglarized while at work. I still don't sleep well anymore, with the ever-present feeling of dread that a nighttime home invasion is coming any day now. I can't leave the apartment for longer than 30 minutes at a time without expecting to come home to another completed burglary. I can't afford to move yet, but I can't wait for the day I go back to doubling my current rent to live in a higher class, 100+ dwelling building. I will probably never buy a house. As I get older and save for a down payment, I'm sure it will be for a condo. I don't care for condo associations with their politics and fees, and the fact you only own or semi-own a section of an entire building. But I would never feel safe in a house where I have only a single door sitting between myself and my things, and an entire city full of parasitic people.
  - solipsism 11y ago
    Shouldn't an entire suburb full of houses identical to your own yield the same peace of mind? Do you think being separated by walls instead of air makes a difference mentally?
    - pyre 11y ago
      When you're on the ground floor you are more likely to be targeted than when you're on the 40th floor.
      - morgante 11y ago
        Oh no! You might get "targeted." How scary! This thread has been really illuminating for me. I didn't realize so many people were so afraid of "criminals" that they can't even get good sleep.
        developer2 11y ago
        Have you ever been burglarized by someone unknown and uncaught? The violation is extremely personal. These people watch you for days or weeks to ensure they know your routine. They know when you leave for work, and when you come home. They know you don't work Fridays. It could be a neighbour you've said hello to dozens of times, watching from their window. It could be a stranger who finds it worthwhile to sit in their car watching your home. You'll never know. Either way, they've invested time in observing you, and have specifically chosen you as their target. Yes, it makes you "targeted". When you come home to your back door broken open, and find $5000 worth of shit missing, and every drawer in your home opened and sifted through? When you can't possibly even know exactly what's missing. A month after the incident, you're still finding new things that were taken from you. It's not just about the stolen property. It's your entire personal space ripped apart. It's a form of psychological rape. Hope you get to experience that some day.
        morgante 11y ago
        > It's a form of psychological rape. Hope you get to experience that some day. Wow. I can understand why you might feel emotional about a robbery. I imagine it's very invasive. Given that, I cannot imagine why you would wish it on someone else. My point was that it's an irrational fear: you're likely not going to get robbed and it's not worth spending a bunch of time worry about it.
mapgrep 11y ago
I'd be curious if OP has a partner or roommate at home. When sleeping next to my spouse, I would venture there is some small level of stress associated with not wanting to roll into them, impede their movement, etc. Even just having someone else in the same apartment (different room) I recall being somewhat stressful. When you go from sharing a bed or dwelling to having a whole distinct hotel room to yourself, it can be very mentally relaxing, in my experience. (At least in short intervals; obviously I prefer having someone there with me long term. Although some couples sleep in separate rooms and report very good results!) Interesting phenomenon for sure.
- tamana 11y ago
  Why do you fear disturbing your housemate but not your hotel neighbor?
cpncrunch 11y ago
I used to have some trouble sleeping in hotels for the first night, but now I don't see to have any difficulty. I think it's mostly due to having slept in a lot more hotels over the years, it now feels like a "normal" experience.

ghaff 11y ago

On the other hand, I very much identified with the article. For the first night or so in a new place, I commonly don't sleep well even if there aren't obvious travel-related factors (jet lag, shifted sleep hours, etc.) I adjust pretty quickly for the most part, but it commonly takes a day or two.

mhandley 11y ago

I always sleep badly the first night camping. After that I sleep really well, and it doesn't matter if the tent is in a different location or the weather changes or whatever.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago

I have similar great sleep when camping. There are lot of factors that may be involved. Exercise. When camping, I'm typically much more active during the day than my usual routine. This is especially true if I'm on a hiking trip, walking several miles each day. But even if we've setup a stationary camp, all of the little activities add up to a lot of movement. Lack of distractions/schedule. When camping, I typically just go to bed when I get tired, which is usually soon after it gets dark, and I wake up naturally, not to an alarm clock, typically with the sun. Cool, dark, and quiet. It's usually cool at night, very dark, and relatively quiet. That contributes to great sleep regardless of the environment. I've also had some of my worst sleep when camping. A couple of times when it was way, way colder than expected. It's hard to sleep when you're shivering. But mostly the problem is when it's too hot. I sleep terribly when it's warm, and I think that's true for many people. I also think it matters whether you're camping solo or in a group. When you're with a group, I think you instinctively feel safer, but I've had some bad nights camping solo. One night especially sticks out in my mind. I'd seen a black bear and a cub earlier in the day, across a stream. They were a safe distance away and probably didn't care about me at all. But all night, whenever I heard a noise, I'd spring up and question for the thousandth time if I hung my food far enough away. It's amazing how large and menacing an opossum or deer can sound walking through the underbrush. But the next night when I met up with my companions, I had the best sleep ever. :)

agmcleod 11y ago
In 2012, I went camping in mt tremblant mid september with my brother and his friends. The night we got there it rained hard. Saturday during the day was okay, but that night got super cold, around -1 degrees celsius. Plus we could hear wolves howling across the lake. Not the best of nights sleep. I do tend to get nervous of nature at night when I'm camping, but love my experiences during the day. So yeah I completely understand what you mean :)

l33tbro 11y ago

Perhaps you think you sleep better camping because you are usually so tuckered out from walking around in the outdoors.

rokhayakebe 11y ago

Re: Camping. Evolution? Genuine question.

elwell 11y ago

Re: Camping Maybe more oxygen rich environment?

dwyerm 11y ago

For me, camping usually meant being somewhere over 10,000ft AMSL. My altitude sickness manifests as insomnia. So, my first night was always a -- nearly literal -- nightmare.

cesarbs 11y ago

My first night in any hotel is almost always terrible. But on subsequent nights I sleep like a baby.