Jail Hotels: bunking like an inmate


Call me weird, but there is something sickly exciting about living in a hotel that used to be a jail. I prefer hostels, bed and breakfast inns and motels to hotels — with a special dislike towards 5-star luxury — but should I have the opportunity to stay at the new Boston jail hotel, I’d take it.

Smartly called “Liberty Hotel”, the once notorious Charles Street Jail celled Boston Mayor James Michael Curley and Frank Abagnale Jr., the con artist played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “Catch Me If You Can.” After a $150 million refurbishment, it is now a 4-star hotel that seems to have succeeded in making something once squalid into something luxurious. Opened only in August, the likes of Meg Ryan and Mick Jagger have already been guests.

Less luxurious and more prison-like is the “Jail Hotel” in Switzerland, and the Liepaja prison in Latvia that takes your ‘lock-up’ experience to different heights. At the Liepaja, you are photographed and given a prison passport; you are given a medical test, a ‘do’s and don’ts’ list, and you have to make your own bed to strict army codes; a gun shot is fired if they see you smirking!

Any takers?

[Via ABC News]

Photo: Travelblog.org — Downpour30, Justin and Lauren

Go To Jail on Bondi Beach?

What comes to mind when you think of Bondi Beach? Probably you’re imagining bikinis, white sand, leathery-skinned suntanners and the heavenly water, a refuge from the heat of the day. What you’re probably not imagining is Jail. That’s right — a German artist has come up with a novel idea: Prison on the beach. I know what you’re thinking — what kind of crime do you have to do to end up in that prison? Well, actually, it’s voluntary.

What gives? Turns out it’s art, and the master behind the piece, Gregor Schneider, was inspired by racial riots between ethnic Lebanese Australians and white Australian youths that happened in 2005 on another Sydney beach, Cronulla. The cells are meant to capture the confinement of racism in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Or … something like that ?

The jail cells will come be at Bondi until October 21. So until then, you can trade your time on the white sand in for time behind bars if you want to. But really, who would? Certainly not this beach-deprived traveller.