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I was feeling the need for a countryside escape to clear my mind. But, as my train pulled into Banbury station, my final destination is not to be a country-house hotel, nor a village B&B. Instead I find myself standing before a large glass box in a field in rural Oxfordshire.

Sheep are grazing casually around the field’s perimeter and a gentle autumnal breeze is blowing through the trees, but my accommodation looks more like a prop from a David Blaine stunt than the rustic Shangri-La I had imagined. This is the Travelpod, the world’s first mobile hotel room.

The latest wheeze by budget hotel chain Travelodge, the Travelpod takes its inspiration from the group’s 320 hotels across the UK and adds wheels for an experience somewhere between camping, caravanning and spending a night in the penguin enclosure at London Zoo.

This second generation model has been rigorously tested by the company’s – wait for it – Director of Sleep, and now faces six months of trial by consumers, who can apply to road test the pod via a prize draw on the Travelodge website.

The final product will be rolled out in time for summer festivals and sporting events in 2008. It’s envisaged that Travelodge will deliver the pod to an agreed destination and staff from a local property will come out to service it on a daily basis.

Armed with the door code, I approach the 6m (length) by 2.4m (width) by 2.6m (height) box cautiously, suddenly aware that, once inside, my every move will be on show like a contestant in some bizarre reality TV show. The nearest village maybe several miles away and the sheep looking nonchalantly but, suddenly, I feel very self-conscious.

The pod may be designed for two, but I’m guessing this wouldn’t be my wife’s idea of a romantic country break a deux.

Once inside, the heat hits me. An aluminium-framed box with clear polycarbonate sides, the pod is fitted with air conditioning and a generator for up to eight hours of power but, on an autumnal late afternoon, it feels stuffy and humid. Feedback from the initial trials has already determined that final-version pod will have a window.

With the sun setting over Oxfordshire I flop on the large double bed and start flipping through the DVDs to play on the flat-screen TV, all the time keeping an eye out for dog-walkers or hikers disturbed to stumble across a man sweating in a see-though box on an otherwise nondescript Wednesday afternoon.

The bathroom is small but does offer some privacy with just enough room to douse myself in cold water from the tap (there’s no shower), dry off in front of the shaving mirror and park myself on the bio-degradable toilet, similar to those used in caravans, to consider my surroundings.

I’m just starting to acclimitise when there’s a knock at the door. “Travelodge came up with the idea. I’m just the oily rag,” explains Nick Lees, Managing Director of Anthem, a design agency working with Travelodge to build the Travelpod, who has come to check on how I’m settling in. “It’s a three-week build and not terribly high-tech in terms of engineering,” he explains, pulling up a chair as I make us a cup of tea and flick on the DVD of Babel.

It’s a calm, autumnal evening but, after Nick leaves me, I find myself pacing the pod, carving a line along the glass façade from the clothes rack to the desk. I’m completely alone, yet the goldfish bowl design leaves me troubled by the prospect of a local farmer catching me parading round in my boxer shorts, or a gang of maverick sheep raiding my supply of tea and coffee-making sachets.

I try drawing the blinds but still can’t settle. There’s just the sheep and the sounds of the country, but I feel like an exhibit as I try dozing on the bed with the film in the background and my mobile phone to hand.

After a fitful sleep, I dress quickly, decide to eschew the in flight-style £4.50 breakfast box and open the blinds cautiously, half expecting the gurning faces of a school group, or a busload of pensioners to be peering back at me inquisitively. As it is, the just sheep look on bored.

Will I be booking a Travelpod to spend a spring evening on the shores of Lake Windermere next summer, or parking my pod in the middle of the Peak District? Probably not – even with rooms starting from £26 per night for advance bookings as per standard Travelodge rooms.

But that’s just me. Over 3,00 people have already expressed a keen desire to be pod pioneers and, I guess, people who stay in glass pods shouldn’t throw stones.

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