Hobo tourism/Overnight stays in long intercontinental journeys/In halls and stairwells



Staying overnight in the lobby of an office structure or on the landing of an apartment building is a variation of a hobo tourist's night rest. The option was tried out by the Russian traveller Viktor Pinchuk in Japan and Hong Kong.

In the big cities of Japan, some high-rise office and residential buildings do not have code locks at the front entrances, particularly the old nine-storey apartment buildings. If you go up the stairs, there is a technical floor at the top, a not big area of which is quite suitable for a night's rest.

Sometimes it is not necessary to go up. This is what it looks like in practice: "Osaka is the second largest and third most populous city in Japan. I was not invited to visit, spent the night in the entrance hall of a relatively (by Japanese standards) small building. We live in the 21st century, high-rise blocks have a security at the entrance. Japan is not far behind. Only the guard was not at workplace: for a long time and to no avail I knocked on his booth through the tinted glass. A cosy, dead-end corridor, lined on the left and right with letterboxes, is where the stunned Japanese found the early morning "alien".

The same traveller, while in Kyoto, lived on the floor of a student dormitory for several days, having a rest at the door of the lift which does not work at night (see video), and leaving his backpack dayly in the lobby during the day. While in Hong Kong, he spent the night on the top floor of a high-rise building, near the roof exit door, where permanently hid backpack started from the second day of stay.

A guide to action
On the basis of the above, the recommendations for using this method can be summarised as follows:
 * Find a high-rise building that does not have a combination lock, climb to the end of the stairs and (if there is a technical floor and space is available) spread out a sleeping pad on the concrete and lay down to sleep.
 * Go into the lobby of the building; if a guard is present, ask him to allocate two square metres on the floor for sleeping. If there is no guard present, choose a secluded corner on your own and go to bed quickly, making as little noise as possible.