Crashpads aren’t hard to come by. In fact, in most airline cities they’re pretty easy to come by. However there are many problems with them, namely what some of the others hit on above.

Additionally, they don’t allow you to have any semblance of privacy and you never really get anything close to quality sleep, especially for light sleepers like me. It was absolutely horrible on my sleep.

Many of these pads come in a variety of different ‘flavors,’ ranging from a very sketchy roach infested party zone in a dangerous neighborhood, with leaking pipes, to a nice house/townhome that’s brand new in a safe neighborhood with a cleaning service that comes on a weekly basis. Most crashpads are a revolving door with new people constantly moving in and people constantly moving out. I lived in one for a whopping month and a half until I finally had enough of the community living environment. There started to be an increasing amount of drama in the house, mainly amongst some of the flight attendants (and some would try to bring the pilots in on the drama), people stealing each others food (someone stole my freezer pack, never did find out who), constant noise and lack of respect for fellow pad mates, the list goes on.

I could probably tolerate that kind of environment more when I was 20, but at 34 i just don’t have the patience for that crap anymore. I left that place while still on short call reserve, and I happily paid hotels up to $900 a month and very good, quality sleep and had my OWN damn privacy for once lol. Sure I was paying a lot more for hotels, but man was it worth it!