Travelers have had enough. It’s time to make hotel room bathrooms private again
By Karla Cripps, CNN
Let’s set the scene. You’ve been dating someone for a few months, things are going well. It’s time to take the next step — a weekend away together.
You find a great hotel that ticks all the right boxes: nice neighborhood, some enticing food and drink options and phenomenal reviews for its “fun” design elements.
Then, you check in. Entering the room together, you quickly realize things are going to get a bit more intimate than planned.
The toilet, set in a small cubicle, is shielded only by a thin panel of glass with strategically placed frosting, just steps from the bed. The human form, though blurred, will most certainly be seen, no matter where you are in the room, the user’s feet fully visible because, for some reason, the designer didn’t think the bottom section of the cubicle needed that frosting. Do take a moment to consider the potential audio issues.
First, let me just say, no judgment if that’s your thing.
My own expectations of privacy while traveling dissipated long ago. I’ve been married for nearly 20 years and have two teenagers nearing adulthood. We’ve encountered some incredibly bizarre hotel bathroom designs over the years at all price points.
Family rooms with bathtubs in open view. Blinds on the EXTERIOR of a window looking into the bathroom. Sliding doors that leave wide cracks of space — a dream for clingy toddlers or curious young looky-loos who’ve yet to learn about personal boundaries. The list goes on.
I have always begrudgingly accepted it as part of the travel experience. But it only takes a quick search of review sites like TripAdvisor or travel forums on Reddit to realize there are plenty of other frustrated travelers out there.
Well, I’ve got good news for all of you fed-up privacy seekers. A movement is taking shape, and help has arrived in the form of Bringbackdoors.com, which has a database of hotels that are guaranteed to have bathroom doors in their rooms, as well as ones that don’t.
Sadie Lowell, an American marketer based in Europe, launched the site late last year. Having traveled most of her life, she says she got used to seeing strange hotel bathroom setups. However, in 2024, while visiting London with her father for a show, she was struck by the absurdity of their situation.
“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 stop thinking about how strange 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, while planning another trip, the experience with her father was still fresh in her mind and she thought to herself, “I wish there was a way to check this.”
By mid-October 2025, Bringbackdoors.com was up and running. Lowell says she started posting TikTok videos to highlight the issue and, before long, the reactions and submissions started 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 around 800 submissions from around the world, and Bringbackdoors.com has been promoted in multiple global media outlets.
“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.”
How much privacy do you need?
Because there are varying degrees of privacy people are comfortable with, Bringbackdoors.com separates the rooms into categories.
First, there are the ones 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 description.
And then there are the ones that offer “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 finally, the last category in the “no doors” section covers additional sensory concerns: “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 fun and unexpected amenity!
Lowell says she uses various methods to verify submissions depending on the category, including searching for photos or confirming with the hotel directly that all of their bathrooms are fully private.
There are certainly times when you might want that open-plan bathroom. For instance, if you’re in a large suite at a tropical resort, with plenty of space, having an open-air bathtub or shower off to the side of a room could be quite lovely.
When it’s a single room with twin beds you’re sharing with a colleague on a business trip, and there’s no place to hide while you’re taking care of personal business, it really does make you wonder what’s going on.
For insights into the world of hotel bathroom design, I reached out to award-winning designer Paula O’Callaghan, partner at HBA, a global firm that’s behind some of the most famous luxury hotels and resorts on the planet.
She says she first recalls seeing frosted glass in a hotel bathroom nearly 30 years ago at the original 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.”
O’Callaghan also notes that not all frosted glass is created equal, with different degrees of opacity and thickness, and there are various ways to deal with the acoustic and ventilation issues.
“I think maybe it’s the interpretations and the iterations of it that went wrong,” she says when asked about some of the unusual hotel bathrooms now being shamed online.
“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 quick to add, some bathroom rules just shouldn’t be broken. For instance, the toilet can’t be out there in the open like some 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 recent years, hotel operators in many major global destinations have, for the most part, been pro open bathroom, she notes. And some — particularly lifestyle brands — are keen to have the bathtub separated from the shower/toilet and part of the guest 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 likely be surprised by the backlash.
One thing I’ve personally noticed over the years is that you’re less likely to find an outrageous bathroom design in a heritage hotel — even the ones that have gone through extensive renovations.
O’Callaghan, who counts the historic Waldorf Astoria in Shanghai among her past projects, says that as a designer, “your priorities change completely” when working on a hotel set inside a historic building.
“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 in the olden days, they may not have had air-conditioning, but the bathrooms had doors. So for designers looking to re-create that story of the golden era of travel that draws tourists to such hotels, they are unlikely to make any extreme changes to the layout — in fact, in some cities certain historic buildings are protected by law.
But, given we don’t always have the opportunity — or budget — to check into heritage properties or spacious, high-end luxury hotels with carefully considered designs, those in search of guaranteed privacy can now find relief at Bringbackdoors.com.
Vive la Révolution!
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