Let’s set the scene. You’ve been relationship somebody for a couple of months, issues are going properly. It’s time to take the following step — a weekend away collectively.
You discover an incredible hotel that ticks all the appropriate bins: good neighborhood, some engaging food and drinks choices and phenomenal critiques for its “fun” design parts.
Then, you test in. Entering the room collectively, you shortly understand issues are going to get a bit extra intimate than deliberate.
The bathroom, set in a small cubicle, is shielded solely by a skinny panel of glass with strategically positioned frosting, simply steps from the mattress. The human kind, although blurred, will most definitely be seen, irrespective of the place you’re within the room, the person’s toes totally seen as a result of, for some purpose, the designer didn’t suppose the underside part of the cubicle wanted that frosting. Do take a second to take into account the potential audio points.
First, let me simply say, no judgment if that’s your factor.
My personal expectations of privateness whereas touring dissipated way back. I’ve been married for almost 20 years and have two youngsters nearing maturity. We’ve encountered some extremely weird hotel toilet designs over time in any respect value factors.
Family rooms with bathtubs in open view. Blinds on the EXTERIOR of a window wanting into the toilet. Sliding doorways that go away large cracks of area — a dream for clingy toddlers or curious younger looky-loos who’ve but to find out about private boundaries. The listing goes on.
I have at all times begrudgingly accepted it as a part of the journey expertise. But it solely takes a fast search of overview websites like TripAdvisor or journey boards on Reddit to understand there are many different pissed off vacationers on the market.
Well, I’ve received excellent news for all of you fed-up privateness seekers. A motion is taking form, and assist has arrived within the type of Bringbackdoors.com, which has a database of motels which can be assured to have toilet doorways of their rooms, in addition to ones that don’t.
Sadie Lowell, an American marketer primarily based in Europe, launched the positioning late final 12 months. Having traveled most of her life, she says she received used to seeing unusual hotel toilet setups. However, in 2024, whereas visiting London along with her father for a present, she was struck by the absurdity of their state of affairs.
“We booked two twin beds in a room, and when we walked in, there was no bathroom door, and there wasn’t even a semblance of a bathroom door,” she tells me.
Lowell couldn’t cease serious about how unusual it was: she booked twin beds, so why no door?
“I don’t know if it’s the developers, the designers or the architects who made that choice, but they’ve strayed far from what people actually want and are looking for — they don’t connect,” she says. “Having twin beds in your room means that you absolutely want bathroom privacy.”
Months later, whereas planning one other journey, the expertise along with her father was nonetheless recent in her thoughts and she or he thought to herself, “I wish there was a way to check this.”
By mid-October 2025, Bringbackdoors.com was up and operating. Lowell says she began posting TikTok videos to spotlight the difficulty and, earlier than lengthy, the reactions and submissions began pouring in.
“It’s been kind of a crazy roller coaster ever since, just slowly gaining more and more momentum,” she says.
To date, Lowell says she’s added round 800 submissions from around the globe, and Bringbackdoors.com has been promoted in a number of world media shops.
“This is beyond my wildest imagination of what this website would actually become,” she says.
“It just feels really good because I went after such an unusual topic. There was a part of me that said, ‘Are people going to care about this? Maybe, maybe not.’ And the traction it’s gaining is telling me, yes, a lot of people care about this.”
Because there are various levels of privateness persons are snug with, Bringbackdoors.com separates the rooms into classes.
First, there are those Lowell calls “the worst offenders.”
“If you want to stay here with people you aren’t comfortable using the toilet around, you will need to take turns going out to the lobby,” reads the outline.
And then there are those that supply “50% privacy: Glass doors with walls.”
“The doors themselves are lacking in privacy. However, with some maneuvering, you could create privacy in these rooms by hanging towels or sitting in a specific corner of the room.”
And lastly, the final class within the “no doors” part covers extra sensory considerations: “These hotels tend to offer visual privacy, but all other types of privacy are off the table. You will be able to hear and smell exactly what’s happening in the bathroom.”
Now that’s a enjoyable and sudden amenity!
Lowell says she makes use of varied strategies to confirm submissions relying on the class, together with looking for images or confirming with the hotel instantly that every one of their bathrooms are totally private.
There are definitely instances when you may want that open-plan toilet. For occasion, in the event you’re in a big suite at a tropical resort, with loads of area, having an open-air bathtub or bathe off to the facet of a room may very well be fairly pretty.
When it’s a single room with twin beds you’re sharing with a colleague on a enterprise journey, and there’s no place to conceal when you’re caring for private enterprise, it actually does make you surprise what’s happening.
For insights into the world of hotel toilet design, I reached out to award-winning designer Paula O’Callaghan, accomplice at HBA, a worldwide agency that’s behind a few of the most well-known luxurious motels and resorts on the planet.
She says she first recollects seeing frosted glass in a hotel toilet almost 30 years in the past on the unique Park Hyatt in Tokyo.
“When that hit the scene, everybody was gushing on about how avant-garde the bathroom was with these frosted glass cubicles,” she says.
“And I remember distinctly the frosted glass panel divided the shower area from the toilet cubicle, and then both the shower door and the toilet cubicle door had frosted panels. And everyone was going, ‘Wow, this is so fresh and different’ — at least everybody in the design world. I think that was the first time I remember it, because it was quite different and novel.”
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O’Callaghan additionally notes that not all frosted glass is created equal, with completely different levels of opacity and thickness, and there are numerous methods to cope with the acoustic and air flow points.
“I think maybe it’s the interpretations and the iterations of it that went wrong,” she says when requested about a few of the uncommon hotel bathrooms now being shamed on-line.
“If you have a small bathroom, maybe it’s not appropriate to do that kind of application. I can only imagine that people may be compelled to do it, too, because they don’t want the bathroom to feel too small.”
And, she’s fast to add, some toilet guidelines simply shouldn’t be damaged. For occasion, the bathroom can’t be on the market within the open like a few of the offenders on Bringbackdoors.com.
“Even if it’s a more lifestyle-driven type of brand, and maybe not as high-end of a luxury tier, we will still push for an enclosed toilet cubicle,” she says.
“Never clear glass, and never a situation where someone can just see right in from the guestroom area. Even if the bathroom has been closed fully, like a traditional bathroom, we still would like to have the toilet area enclosed.”
In current years, hotel operators in lots of main world locations have, for probably the most half, been professional open toilet, she notes. And some — significantly way of life manufacturers — are eager to have the bath separated from the bathe/bathroom and a part of the visitor room.
“It’s a trend that has been growing bolder and bolder, at least for the last three decades,” says O’Callaghan, noting many designers will probably be stunned by the backlash.
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One factor I’ve personally observed over time is that you simply’re much less probably to discover an outrageous toilet design in a heritage hotel — even those that have gone by way of intensive renovations.
O’Callaghan, who counts the historic Waldorf Astoria in Shanghai amongst her previous initiatives, says that as a designer, “your priorities change completely” when engaged on a hotel set inside a historic constructing.
“You have more parties to consider; beyond the operator and the owner, you may have the historic preservation panel to consider, and they will have their opinions too about how an interior is restored or preserved or renovated,” she says.
And within the olden days, they might not have had air-conditioning, however the bathrooms had doorways. So for designers wanting to re-create that story of the golden period of journey that attracts vacationers to such motels, they’re unlikely to make any excessive modifications to the format — in reality, in some cities sure historic buildings are protected by legislation.
But, given we don’t at all times have the chance — or funds — to test into heritage properties or spacious, high-end luxurious motels with rigorously thought-about designs, these looking for assured privateness can now discover reduction at Bringbackdoors.com.
Vive la Révolution!