If you love the sense of community at multi-day outdoor music festivals like Glastonbury, Coachella and Bonnaroo but hate the mud, dust, noise and filthy porta-potties, this hostel was designed just for you. Cao Pu Studio designed ‘Together Hostel’ as an indoor camping experience, with guests staying in translucent individual ‘tents’ under a common roof. The experience emphasizes socializing, with lots of shared interactive spaces, but provides a tad more privacy than the average hostel bunk room.

The tents are organized in groups of four or five, making the hostel ideal for small groups traveling together, or for travelers prioritizing making new connections with strangers. Each tent is equipped with power sockets, extension cords and reading lights. Each of the timber-framed structures is finished in frosted polycarbonate, which doesn’t offer total privacy, but at least gives occupants a sense of their own personal space within the larger hostel without shutting them off altogether. If you’re backpacking, you can even roll out your sleeping pad in the theater area at night instead of sleeping in a ‘tent’ for a lower rate.

There’s a food court with lots of seating, a shop, a bar, a small theater space, a kitchen, offices and plenty of private showers and restrooms in addition to the tents, which come in single or double sizes. Modular tables in the central hall fit together like puzzle pieces, creating larger or smaller surfaces depending on whether you want to sit with a big group or dine alone.

The concept capitalizes on growing trends (voluntary or not) toward living in smaller spaces and in closer quarters with others rather than spreading out in suburban-style homes. People who travel on the cheap are accustomed to giving up space and privacy in exchange for a good deal, and this design makes the experience feel cleaner and more intentional. Would you stay at the ‘Together Hostel?’

You might not want to live in a shipping container permanently, but now you can test-drive one for a night or two at the affordable, streamlined and modern Ccasa Hostel in Vietnam. Colorful cargo containers are stacked on top of each other to create a tower of rentable rooms, set within an open air framework that takes advantage of the tropical local climate. Located in Nha Trang just a three-minute walk from the beach, it’s intended for backpackers who flock to the area to enjoy local mineral spring resorts and temples.

The design of the hostel is based on that of a family home, with lots of beds sharing bathroom, kitchen and living room facilities. Some of the converted shipping containers offer private bedrooms, while others are packed full of bunks in traditional hostel fashion. The containers are seen as just a place to sleep or rest in between adventures or socializing in the common areas.

Ccasa Hostel contains three functional blocks: the sleeping block, the washing block and the serving block. The serving block is made of steel frames and black painted metal sheets, and the washing block mimics typical Vietnamese architecture with white-painted bricks and concrete. The three colors of the shipping containers denote different kinds of bedrooms.

Instead of the dank, dark corridors you’d usually find in a cheap hostel, there are breezy open-air walkways looking down onto the courtyard below, which is filled with trees. A system of ropes and steel framing encourages climbing vines to obscure the shipping containers on the rear of the building, and as it grows, it’ll create a living screen that filters air, light and noise.

Every true bibliophile has gazed up at the seemingly endless shelves of books in a good bookstore or library and imagined gathering up a stack, finding a quiet nook and turning in for the night. In Japan (where else?) you can actually do just that in a library-themed hostel, though you might be too excited about your reading materials to get much sleep. The Book and Bed Hostel by Suppose Design Office features semi-private sleeping nooks built right into the bookshelves, so you can climb out and look for more books as often as you want.

The hostel has two locations – Tokyo and Kyoto – with rates starting at just $40 (4,445 yen) per night. In the true spirit of a hostel, everything is set up dorm style with shared bathrooms and nothing but curtains separating you from your neighbors, but considering the theme of the place, you probably don’t care. Book and Bed isn’t really about enjoying privacy or getting a good night’s sleep.

The Tokyo location features over 1,700 titles to choose from, stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves. Climb the library ladders to reach the highest ones, and check out the featured books that have been hung from the ceiling as decor. Each sleeping nook is fitted with a backlight and an outlet, and there’s wifi, though you’ll probably be too busy reading to use it.

The Kyoto hostel is located just steps from many popular local attractions, like the Yasaka Shrine and the Nanzenji Temple. There’s a special selection of Kyoto-centric books in both English and Japanese. Both hostels offer striped robes and totes reading ‘Have a Book Day’ for purchase as souvenirs. You can see more photos on the Book and Bed Tokyo Instagram account.

“Book and Bed is an ‘accommodation bookshop.’ The perfect setting for a good nights sleep is something you will not find here. There are no comfortable mattresses, fluffy pillows nor lightweight and warm down duvets. What we do offer is an experience while reading a book (or comic book.) An experience shared by everyone at least once: the blissful ‘instant of falling asleep.’ It is already 2am but you think just a little more… with heavy drooping eye lids you continue reading only to realize you have fallen asleep.”

“Dozing off obliviously during your treasured pastime is the finest ‘moment of sleep,’ don’t you agree?”

At Bonn’s Basecamp Young Hostel, travelers enjoy the quirky accommodations of cheerfully decorated vintage RVs, with views of the sea and an unchanging blue sky just beyond their windows. That sky will never go cloudy, nor will it rain, because this particular campground is actually located in a 600-square-meter industrial warehouse.

Each of the 15 RVs has been lovingly restored and transformed into its own individual getaway with a specific theme. For example, there’s a hunting cabin laden with antlers and furs, a seaside camper with a captain’s wheel and oars, and a British parlor ready for afternoon tea.

The campers have names like ‘Drag Queen,’ ‘Rockabilly,’ ‘Space Shuttle’ and ‘Zen.’ Guests at the hostel can choose which eccentric theme best fits their tastes. The interiors may not be luxurious, but they’re certainly fun.

The reclaimed RVs range from teardrop trailers with faux wood panels and authentic Airstreams to VW buses. Also on site are two railway cars from Deutsche Bahn trains, which offer space for small student groups. Rates start at just 54 euros per night.