How to Set Up a Mobile Office That Works Anywhere
The minimum viable travel office is a laptop and a phone. Most people figure that out quickly. The gap between "functional" and "actually productive" takes a bit longer to work out.
The hardware you actually need
Laptop: whatever you use for work. Obvious. A lightweight one matters more when you're carrying it through airports frequently - the difference between a 1.2kg MacBook Air and a 2.1kg Windows laptop is real over six months of travel.
A travel router is surprisingly useful. The GL.iNet Beryl or similar compact router lets you connect to hotel Wi-Fi, run it through the router, and connect all your devices on your own private network. This means you can also plug in Ethernet if the hotel has a wired port (often much faster than the Wi-Fi), and share that connection across your phone, laptop, and tablet. About £50-80, fits in a jacket pocket.
A universal power adapter. Get one with USB-C and USB-A ports built in so you're not carrying separate adapters and chargers. The Anker 65W GaN chargers are compact and genuinely good.
Noise-cancelling headphones for video calls. Sony WH-1000XM5 or Bose QC45 - either is good. ANC blocks out café noise, the mic quality is decent enough for calls, and they double as your audio system for everything else.
Internet redundancy
Don't rely on a single connection for anything that matters. The setup that works:
Primary: coworking space or apartment fibre when possible. Secondary: eSIM mobile data for the days you're working from a café or on the move. I keep a regional eSIM plan active at all times when travelling - Vsimer's coverage across Europe and Southeast Asia means I can hotspot my laptop if a café's Wi-Fi dies mid-call.
For the hotspot setup, check your phone's Personal Hotspot supports USB tethering as well as Wi-Fi. USB tethering is more stable and doesn't drain your phone battery as fast.
Apps and software
Notion or Obsidian for notes that work offline. 1Password for credentials (stored locally with cloud sync). Mullvad or ProtonVPN for public Wi-Fi situations. Krisp for AI noise cancellation on calls when you're in a noisy environment and ANC headphones aren't quite cutting it.
Make sure your work tools have offline modes enabled: Google Docs offline sync, Slack's message history cache, GitHub Desktop for code. The goal is that a dropped connection doesn't lose work in progress.
The call setup
Video calls from different countries have three variables: your connection speed, latency to the server, and background environment. Speed and latency you manage with your internet setup above. Background: a simple backdrop or a neutral wall behind you matters more than people admit. Hotels have ugly generic backgrounds. A white or grey wall, good window lighting from the side (not directly behind you), and you look professional anywhere.
Time zone management
Keep your laptop clock in your home time zone if you have regular meetings scheduled there, and use a secondary clock widget showing local time. World Time Buddy (web app) is essential for figuring out meeting times across zones. The mental overhead of constantly converting time zones is surprisingly tiring - minimise it with the right tools.