Would you check in in a prison hotel? South Korean ‘prison’ charges £ 100 to become overnight stays

A South Korean hotel offers guests exactly the opposite of an escape and serves imprisonment in a cell that includes only 5 square meters.

Guests – or have to be prisoners – check in the hotel ‘Prison Inside Me’ in Hongcheon, 80 km northeast of Seoul, not for spa treatments, good food or long lie – but to taste what it is like to be beaten.

Founded more than ten years ago by the former lawyer, Kwon Yong-seok, and his wife, the reason for existence of the hotel, is to let people experience life minus everyday comfort that, they say, enable them to get more in touch with themselves.

When guests, who pay around £ 100 per night to check in, are greeted with the kind of cell that a criminal may be stuck in the pleasure of his Majesty.

Connect thoughts of a comfortable bed, there is a simple mat on the floor of the cell, next to a small desk and a toilet.

Mobile phones are forbidden, there is no way to tell the time and even the basic vanity of the menu, without mirrors in the cells.

Dinner – a basic affair – arrives in the door through a hole, just as it would be in some of the high -quality prisons of Great -Britain.

The order of the day as soon as the key is turned and guests simply have themselves for company, is self -reflection – with meditation, diary writing and some simple yoga encouraged.

Locked up: guests pay around £ 100 per night to check in in prison in me, a hotel that works like a prison in Hongcheon, 80 km northeast of Seoul

The hotel was opened in 2013 by ex -lawyer Kwon Yong -seok who said he wanted to offer guests -mostly stressed from South Koreans -an experience that would let them step off the treadmill

The conversation is also limited, but those who check in, mostly South Koreans who are looking for a unique digital detox, say they enjoy the prison experience.

The prison in me, they claim, offers the chance to leave the pressure of society and work one night or two – as a monastery retreat could.

Founder Kwon Yong -seok initially won about 2 billion Korean – about £ 1 million – setting up the ‘spiritual’ facility after he became fascinated by the idea that an eruption of lonely confinement could be good for the mental health of people who have worked for 100 hours.

The ex -lawyer said when the hotel opened in 2013: ‘I didn’t know how to stop working.

“I felt that I was being wiped out against my will, and it seemed that I couldn’t control my own life.”

He added: ‘I just hope that this place offers a chance for visitors to think about themselves.

‘I sometimes walk backwards so that I can see the road that I have just walked. People rarely do this and only think of roads that lie in front of us. I think we should try to look back. ‘

In the hotel with the prison theme; ‘Prisoners’ live in a single cell that only measures 5 square meters

Cells are thinly furnished, with only a mat on the floor for a bed and simple furniture

And guests must give up their mobile phones – although they can check important messages once a day

On the other side of the world, a holiday maker in Benidorm claimed to have a similar experience with a stay in a hotel that, he claimed ,, looked like a prison with high security.

Grumet, an influencer who shares videos of his antics in Alicante, booked in service dedgers that promise families, ‘Sunshine Terraces, a swimming pool on the roof, a fitness room, a bubble bath and sauna, only a few moments of Levante Beach and the old city of Benidorm.

His experience in an apartment on the Costa Blanca that was invoiced as ‘fantastic for families’, contained broken blinds, tight rooms and interior balances that are reminiscent of one of Europe’s fewer salesonic prisons.

Dubbeds ‘HMP Benidorm’, the clip shows the entrance with parallel white inner balms – complete with metal bars in the rooms.

The hotel, Apartamentos Avenida, costs around £ 50 per night for a room of four people in the winter and goes to £ 116 in August. It is advertised as ‘fantastic for families with small children’ and ‘comfortable’ on Booking.com.

Grumet said: ‘I would not stay here anymore. I have not been to prison, but I have seen TV programs and this was no different. ‘

He filmed guests who stood on the inner balconies to ask them jokes “what you’re in prison?”

One man responded “to use a fire stick and watching football.”

The influencer, who has 316,000 followers, sighed: “The system is a joke.”

The video also contained his poorly lit room, which he called a ‘cell’, which had broken blindly, a fixed line ’47 year old ‘fixed and no’ old city ‘.

He also claimed that he had a panic alarm in his room, which he left to activate an apparently building alert. It is unclear whether the alarm was real.

‘The landing noticed the most. As soon as I saw it, I said this is not an apartment, it’s a prison. I am nicknamed HMP Benidorm ‘.