On our last trip to Stockholm we needed a hotel that ticked three boxes at once – central, budget friendly, and with super easy access to different parts of the city. That is how we ended up at Citybox Stockholm, a modern self service hotel where you check yourself in, drop your bags, and are out exploring again within minutes. In this post I will walk you through what it was really like to stay there, what surprised us (in a good and not so good way), and whether Citybox Stockholm actually works as a smart base for your own Stockholm trip.
- Where is Citybox Stockholm and what kind of hotel is it?
- A modern, self service budget hotel
- What you get instead of classic hotel extras
- Who Citybox Stockholm is perfect for
- Check in and first impression: how Citybox’s self service works
- Rooms at Citybox Stockholm: compact, dark and cosy?
- Prices and value for money
- What you can roughly expect to pay
- What you get in the price
- What is not included and how it affects your budget
- Our personal verdict on value for money
- Final verdict: would I stay at Citybox Stockholm again?
Where is Citybox Stockholm and what kind of hotel is it?
Citybox Stockholm sits in Slussen, which is basically that sweet spot between “tourist Stockholm” and “locals’ Stockholm”. On one side you have Gamla stan with its colourful old houses, narrow streets and souvenir shops. On the other side you have Södermalm, with cafés, viewpoints and more relaxed, everyday city life.
From the hotel you can walk to Gamla stan in just a few minutes, which is perfect if you want to start your day with those classic postcard views without jumping on any transport first thing in the morning. At the same time, you are right by the water and the big Slussen hub, so ferries, buses and the metro are basically your neighbours. If your plan is to criss cross the city, not just stay in one area, this location makes life a lot easier.
For us, Citybox Stockholm worked like a little base camp. We could go out to explore one part of the city, pop back for a quick break, then head out again in a totally different direction without losing half the day on travelling. If you are the kind of person who checks the map and thinks “ok, but how long does it really take to get there”, you will probably appreciate how central this spot actually feels.
A modern, self service budget hotel
Citybox Stockholm is not a classic hotel with a big reception desk, bellboys and someone carrying your suitcase. It is a modern, self service budget hotel with a very clear concept: keep things simple, keep prices down, and let guests handle most of the practical stuff themselves.
Check in happens at terminals in the lobby. You type in your booking number, pay if you have not already done that online, and the machine prints your key card. Check out is just as easy. No queues, no awkward “what was the room number again” moment. There is staff around, but they are more “hosts” than traditional receptionists. You will not see them all the time, but if something does not work, there is someone to ask.
The rooms follow the same idea. Clean, functional, Scandinavian in style, without unnecessary decorations or furniture that you never touch. You get a good bed, a small desk, a bathroom with shower and basic toiletries, and reliable WiFi. If you are used to more traditional hotels with carpets, armchairs and thick curtains, this will feel more like a very practical, stripped back version of that. In a good way, if your priority is a safe, comfy place to sleep rather than a mini palace.
What you get instead of classic hotel extras
Because of the budget concept, some classic hotel things are simply not there. There is no restaurant run by the hotel and breakfast is not automatically included. Instead, you have partner places nearby where you can eat, and a small guest kitchen with microwave and kettle if you prefer to fix something yourself. There is also a vending machine for snacks and drinks, plus a shared fridge in the common area.
Daily room cleaning is not part of the standard package either. Rooms are cleaned every few days and of course between guests. You can order extra cleaning if you really need it, but the default is “less cleaning, lower price, better for the environment”. For short city trips it works fine, especially if you are out most of the day anyway.
What you do get, and what we actually used, is the common area. It feels a bit like a mix between a living room and a coworking space. There are tables to sit with a laptop, smaller corners to have a coffee, and shelves with books and board games. If you need to wait for a train or flight, or just want a quiet hour to plan the next day, this space is very handy and much nicer than sitting in your room all the time.
Who Citybox Stockholm is perfect for
Citybox Stockholm is a great match if you:
- Care more about location than about having a long list of hotel services
- Prefer to spend money on experiences, restaurants and museums rather than on your bed for the night
- Like simple, modern design and do not need your room to be huge
- Appreciate the freedom of self check in and not having to talk to staff every time you walk in and out
It is especially practical for weekend trips, business visits where you are out all day, and longer Scandinavian routes where Stockholm is just one stop and you are watching your total budget.
If you want a hotel that feels like a small universe in itself, with a big breakfast buffet, spa, room service and lots of staff around, Citybox Stockholm will probably feel a bit too minimalistic. But if your idea of a good hotel is: “clean, central, quiet at night and easy to get everywhere from here”, then this place will probably tick most of your boxes.
Check in and first impression: how Citybox’s self service works
Arriving at Citybox Stockholm already feels a bit different from a classic hotel. There is no big reception desk with a queue of people and someone asking for your passport. Instead, you walk into a bright lobby, a lot of light wood, simple furniture, people working on laptops and a row of self service check in machines against the wall.
We arrived earlier than planned because of the train schedule, so we were at the hotel long before the “official” check in time. Standard check in at Citybox starts at 15.00, and they can sometimes arrange check in from 12.00 if you ask early enough. In our case, our room was not ready yet, which is fair if you show up closer to lunchtime than to the afternoon.
The good thing is that you are not stuck in the lobby hugging your suitcase. Citybox has a luggage room where you can leave your bags and go explore the city. You can use it in a very simple way and just drop off your things, or you can choose a more “premium” option, with a small extra fee and luggage insurance handled through a special app. So if you are travelling with more expensive gear or simply like to have that extra layer of security, you can set that up in a few clicks.
Once our check in time got closer, the actual process took only a couple of minutes. You walk up to the terminal, enter your booking details, confirm your information, pay if there is anything left to pay, and the machine prints your key card. That is it. No long form to sign, no digging for your ID at the bottom of your bag. There are staff members around if something does not work, but in general you can do everything yourself and be on the way to your room very quickly.
Our first impression was that the whole self service system fits the Citybox idea perfectly. It is a hotel built for people who want a smooth, no drama base in the city. You come in, you check in, you drop your bags, and you are free to head out again without losing timr at reception. For a trip where location and time in the city were our priorities, that kind of start felt exactly right.
Rooms at Citybox Stockholm: compact, dark and cosy?
We stayed in a standard double room without windows, which already sounds a bit controversial. For some people the idea of sleeping in a room with no daylight can feel slightly claustrophobic, and I completely get that. I had the same thought before arrival: “Is this going to feel like a box”.
In reality, our room turned out to be more spacious than we expected. The layout is very simple: a comfortable double bed, a small desk, a chair, some hooks and hangers instead of a big wardrobe, and a compact bathroom with a shower. No unnecessary furniture, no random decorations. Because there is not much stuff inside, it actually does not feel like you are squeezed into a tiny cabin. We could move around, open our suitcases, and still not bump into each other every time one of us stood up.
What also helps is that the ventilation works really well. The air in the room stays fresh, you can adjust the temperature yourself, and there is no heavy, “stale” feeling that sometimes appears in smaller hotel rooms. So even without windows, it did not feel like we were locked in a box with no oxygen. More like a simple, calm sleeping pod where everything is there for a good night of rest.
Sleeping in total darkness
Now, let us talk about the main character of this room type: darkness. With no windows, nights at Citybox are properly dark. Not “a bit of streetlight through the curtains” dark. Fully dark. And that has two very different sides.
The good side: we slept incredibly well. The bed was genuinely comfortable, the pillows did not try to murder our necks, and with no light sneaking in from the outside, you fall asleep fast and stay asleep. For anyone who is sensitive to light, used to blackout curtains or often wakes up too early because the sun says hello at 4 in the morning, this can feel like a dream. Literally.
The not so good side: waking up. When you have no natural light in the room, your brain loses its usual “ok, it is morning now” signal. You open your eyes and you have no idea if it is 6.00, 9.00 or still the middle of the night. There is no soft daylight slowly bringing you back to reality. Just darkness and your alarm clock. Getting out of bed becomes a tiny mental battle, because nothing in the room encourages your body to wake up.
We quickly learned that in a windowless room you really need to rely on alarms and maybe even place your phone a bit further away, so you actually have to get up to turn it off. Otherwise it is far too easy to press “snooze”, roll over and stay in that cosy cave for another hour.
So, is the windowless room a good idea?
For us, the standard double without windows worked surprisingly well. We came back to the room mainly to sleep and recharge, not to spend long afternoons inside, so the lack of daylight was not a big problem. The combination of comfortable bed, silence and complete darkness meant we woke up well rested every day.
If you know that you are sensitive to feeling “closed in”, or you like to sit by the window with a coffee and watch the city wake up, then choosing a room with a window might be a better option for you. But if your priority is a good, deep sleep in a practical, clean room and you plan to be out in Stockholm most of the day anyway, the windowless option can actually make a lot of sense. Just be prepared for the fact that mornings will require a bit more discipline, because without sunlight to gently push you into the day, that cosy darkness really does not want to let you go.
Prices and value for money
Let’s be honest: Stockholm and “cheap hotel” rarely live in the same sentence. Central areas like Slussen, Gamla stan or the very city centre can get expensive quickly, especially in spring and summer. That is why with Citybox Stockholm I look at price and location together, not as two separate things.
Before we go into numbers, here is where I would normally link the hotel so you can check exact prices for your dates:
👉 Check current prices and availability for Citybox Stockholm here
What you can roughly expect to pay
Citybox Stockholm is clearly positioned as a budget friendly option in a very central location. It is not a hostel and not a luxury hotel. It sits somewhere in the middle.
Prices move a lot depending on season, day of the week and how early you book, but to give you a feeling:
- on quieter dates and in low season you can often find standard double rooms from around 80 to 100 euro per night,
- on busier weekends and in high season it is more realistic to expect something in the 120 to 160 euro per night range for a similar room.
When you compare that with other places in this part of Stockholm, Citybox usually comes out cheaper than many classic hotels around Slussen or Gamla stan, while still giving you a private bathroom and a proper double bed, not a bunk in a dorm.
What you get in the price
The Citybox model is very “you pay for what you actually use”. In the room price you get:
- your chosen room type (in our case: standard double without windows),
- bed linen and towels,
- private bathroom with shower,
- free Wi Fi,
- access to the common areas,
- access to a small guest kitchen with microwave and kettle.
There are no extra “service fees” just for existing, no strange charges hidden in the small print. If you are a straightforward person who likes straightforward pricing, this is refreshing.
Some things are extra and will add to the final amount, for example:
- bringing a dog or another pet,
- adding an extra bed for another person,
- paying for more frequent cleaning if you want it.
For most city break trips, especially for one or two people, you can easily stay within the basic price and not add anything on top.
What is not included and how it affects your budget
Citybox keeps prices lower by cutting classic hotel “extras” that many people do not really use anyway. That means:
- No big breakfast buffet by default.
You either book breakfast as an extra in partner places nearby, or you sort it out yourself. For some travellers this is a minus. For us it was actually a plus, because we prefer to try different cafés and bakeries in the area. - No daily cleaning as standard.
The room is cleaned between guests and then every few days. If you want daily cleaning, you can pay extra. If you are out exploring from morning to evening, you barely notice the difference. - No classic 24 hour reception with concierge style services.
There is staff around, but the whole idea is self service. If you like to call reception for every tiny thing, this will feel minimal. If you like to do things on your own, you will probably enjoy the simplicity.
All of that means that the money that would usually go into breakfast buffets you never finish and daily bed making you do not really need, is taken off the basic price. You are mostly paying for your bed, your shower and your access to one of the best connected locations in the city.
Our personal verdict on value for money
For us, Citybox Stockholm felt like good value for money because we got:
- a clean, comfortable room where we actually slept incredibly well,
- a location that saved us time and metro costs every day,
- a price that was sensible for central Stockholm and did not destroy our budget for food and activities.
If your dream hotel experience is wrapping yourself in a fluffy bathrobe, going down to a huge breakfast buffet and then spending half the day in the spa, Citybox will probably feel too “bare”. You might look at the price and think “for this money I want more services”.
But if a hotel, in your mind, is mainly a safe, quiet, comfortable place to recharge between long walks around the city, then this is exactly the kind of place where your money works harder for you.
👉 Check current Citybox Stockholm prices and availability
Final verdict: would I stay at Citybox Stockholm again?
Short answer: yes, happily.
We left Citybox Stockholm genuinely pleased with our stay. The whole experience was exactly what we needed for this trip: a practical, stress free base in a perfect location, without any unnecessary fuss. Slussen turned out to be a dream spot for moving around the city, and being able to walk to both Gamla stan and Södermalm in just a few minutes felt like cheating the system a little.
Our windowless standard double room surprised us in a good way. It was more spacious than we expected, we slept incredibly well in total darkness, and we never felt cramped. For a city break where you are out all day and mainly come back to rest and recharge, that combination is hard to beat.
We also really liked the common areas. They feel cosy and relaxed, a bit like a living room mixed with a coworking space. You can sit with your laptop, scroll through photos from the day, or just sip something and plan tomorrow’s route. It made the hotel feel more social and “lived in” than a place where you only ever see your room and the lift.
In terms of everyday comfort, we honestly did not miss anything. There was always somewhere to grab a snack or drink. In the evening or early morning we would pick up sandwiches from the nearby Pressbyrån if we felt like it, or go downstairs to the vending machines for something quick to eat or drink. For a simple, flexible travel routine, this worked perfectly.
So, would I book Citybox Stockholm again? Yes, especially for:
- short city trips where location and easy transport connections are the top priority
- travellers who value a good bed, quiet sleep and clean design over hotel “extras”
- people who are happy with self service and do not need a traditional reception staff experience
If you are looking for a central, modern and fairly priced place to sleep well and explore Stockholm without overcomplicating things, Citybox Stockholm is absolutely a hotel I can recommend.
