The Gear I Use to Create My Perfect Portable Office

If I’ve learned anything from a decade of working remotely, it’s that my “office” typically sucks. Cafe tables weren’t designed to be workspaces, and kitchen chairs aren’t intended to be sat on all day.

The ergonomics of hunching over a laptop for hours are frankly awful. I’ve regularly ended up with pain in my neck, back, or wrists after a long typing session.

Wi-Fi signal in hotel rooms and elsewhere is often terrible, while street and cafe noise is a massive distraction. On the rare occasion I do find the ideal workspace, I only get to enjoy it for a few days or weeks before moving on to the next place. When it comes to work environments, the “digital nomad dream” is usually anything but.

While there have been many times I’d happily swap a wobbly coffee shop table for the fancy desk of my old corporate jobs, nothing else attracts me back to the cubicle. Instead, after putting up with it for far too long, I finally got so sick of crappy workspaces that I invested some time and money in solving the problem.

I’ve been using my new setup for a few years now, honing and refining the gear list as I go. It’s made a huge difference, and I’m far more productive, with better focus, faster typing speeds, and less joint pain even after a full day’s work.

The extra gear all fits in my existing day pack and adds about three pounds of extra weight, making it easy enough to justify carrying. Here’s what I’ve used to create my perfect portable office, no matter where I’m working today.

The Laptop Stand

I started with what I considered the most important piece of equipment: a laptop stand. These lift the screen up to eye level, which has eliminated my neck strain and the “digital nomad hunch” you’ll spot in cafes the world over.

I checked out a bunch of them, but most weren’t designed for travel and were too big and heavy to carry all the time. In the end I went with a recommendation from a friend, and ordered the Roost Laptop Stand.

It weighs 165g (under 6oz), and slides down the side of my daypack when folded up for travel. It expands into one of seven height positions, which is useful given I never know how high my table or chair will be from one place to the next, and when I’ve experimented with stand-up working.

The Roost is surprisingly sturdy for such a lightweight device, and I’ve never been worried about it slipping or collapsing, or my laptop falling out of it. My 14″ Lenovo fits perfectly, and it can handle all but the thickest of machines, which you’re not likely to be carrying on the road anyway.

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The Keyboard

Of course, with my laptop sitting up on a stand, I can’t use the inbuilt keyboard. An external keyboard gives a better working position anyway, and if you choose the right one, a better typing experience as well.

As my laptop only has a single USB-A port, I decided to go for a Bluetooth keyboard rather than one that required a wireless USB dongle. There are hundreds of models out there, but most of them are awful. You really do seem to get what you pay for.

For several years I used the Logitech K810, widely regarded as the best travel keyboard you could buy. It was, too, right up until the day that three of the keys stopped working. Unless you need a large paperweight, a keyboard without a functioning p key is remarkably useless.

Since no company, including Logitech, makes a similar model these days, I opted for a cheap and cheerful replacement. As it’s turned out, the Logitech K380 is far better than that. While it’s not on the same level as my previous model, it’s a lot cheaper, and works surprisingly well.

The keys are rounded: circular in most cases, and oval for the larger keys like Enter and the spacebar. They’re slightly smaller than those on my laptop, but it hasn’t made a difference in daily use.

They have just the right amount of firmness and travel for me, and while they can be a bit clattery if you’re a heavy typer, they’re pretty quiet in general and a lot better than most keyboards in this price range. I bought the Windows-specific model, which has a Start and Alt keys. There’s a Mac version as well, if that’s what you need.

There are a few other useful features too. The keyboard remembers three device pairings, and you can switch between them with a button press. I’ve used it with a Mac, iPhone, and a couple of Android phones, and it works well, with no lag or missed keystrokes.

There’s no backlighting, which is a shame if you often find yourself working in dim light. On the upside, this means the two AAA batteries last approximately forever: up to two years, according to both Logitech’s marketing material and satisfied users. I’ve only had mine a few months, but I’ll update this post whenever the batteries do finally run out.

The keyboard is as compact as I could hope for something I’m happy to type on all day, and fits easily in my day bag. All in all, I’ve been much happier than expected with this inexpensive little travel keyboard. If you’d like to read more about it, take a look at my full Logitech K380 review.

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The Mouse

I’ve never really liked touchpads: blame it on using desktop computers for much of my life, I guess. As a result, I’ve had a wireless mouse since starting this journey, although the model has changed over the years.

I started out with a travel-sized Microsoft mouse that used a wireless dongle, but later switched to a Bluetooth version for the same reason I bought a Bluetooth keyboard. I’d also found the size of the mouse was great for fitting in my bag, but a little cramped for extended use.

I tried a few different models, and settled on the Logitech MX Master. Mine is the original model, and although it’s now up to the third version, it hasn’t changed much over the years. It’s bigger than a “travel mouse” for sure, but the small size and weight tradeoff has been well worth it for me.

It’s much more comfortable, very reliable, works on pretty much any surface including glass, and has extra buttons for scrolling and gestures that I’ve used far more than I expected. Despite bouncing around in my bag for much of the last three years, it’s still going strong.

The battery lasts for weeks, and it only takes two or three hours to charge back up again from a micro-USB cable. The latest model uses USB C and gets three hours of use from one minute of charge: mine isn’t quite that fast, but it’s definitely still quick enough.

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The Wi-Fi Booster

Awful Wi-Fi is a fact of life on the road. It’s one of the reasons I started using Airbnb and other apartment rental services instead of staying in hotels. Even so, I’m in guesthouses, cafes, and hotels often enough to get regularly frustrated when I can’t get a signal or it’s too poor to get any real work done.

A vital part of my remote working setup, then, is a Wi-Fi range extender, and I’ve been using one for several years. They turn one or two bars of unusable Wi-Fi signal into a solid four or five, and regularly show networks I can’t see at all with the wireless card that’s built into my laptop.

On many, many occasions, it’s been the difference between a productive few hours and a day spent swearing at websites that won’t load. I used this ancient Alfa model for many years, but although it still works, it doesn’t support any of the recent Wi-Fi network standards.

As a result, I swapped it out for this Techkey model that plugs directly into the laptop USB port. It doesn’t seem to have quite the same range as my previous one, but it’s smaller, lighter, and has support for 5Ghz wireless networks and faster speeds, so overall it’s a wash.

If I was buying again now, though, and looking for something even faster and with greater range, the Netgear AC1900 would be where I’d start. It’s more expensive, but I’d likely stop caring about that the first time I connected to a distant router from my hotel room.

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The Headphones

Everyone has different views on music and noise when they’re working. I have friends who much prefer to work in coffee shops because they love the ambient sounds. Others insist on absolute silence if they’re going to get anything done.

My own preference is an instrumental soundtrack, ideally one designed to increase focus. I’ve used Focus At Will for years, and most of my larger projects simply wouldn’t have got done without it. If you don’t want to spend the money, Spotify has several Focus playlists that are pretty good as well.

When I’m heading to a cafe, co-working, or other shared space, I won’t set out without my noise-canceling headphones. I splashed out and bought a pair of Sony WH-1000XM2‘s a few years ago, and it’s no exaggeration to say they’ve changed my life.

I’d put off buying headphones of any sort due to the extra size and weight, but while they take up far more space in my bag than my old earbuds, I wouldn’t go back. From noisy plane and bus rides to drowning out the din in a cafe or from the bar down the street, they let me withdraw from the world whenever I need to.

Battery life is great. I got 30 hours or more between charges when they were new, and that’s barely changed even now, over four years later. Music sounds warm and inviting, and when I don’t feel like listening to anything in particular, I’ll often just wear the headphones with nothing playing at all.

I also regularly use them for phone and video calls as well, and have had no complaints about the sound quality from anyone I’ve talked to.

Sony’s released an updated model, the WH-1000XM4, which improved the noise cancelation even more and switched out the micro-USB socket for USB C, but otherwise didn’t mess too much with a successful design.

There’s also now an earbud-based version, the WF-1000XM4. The noise cancelation isn’t quite as good, but is still surprisingly effective. If you really can’t justify the space that headphones take up in your bag, these are a worthy alternative.

Wrap-Up

I think long and hard about every addition I make to my packing list, and I’m happy with what I’ve ended up with here. It all fits easily in a day bag, doesn’t weigh much, and lets me easily handle everything from bad ergonomics to noisy environments and crappy Wi-Fi.

I put off setting myself up properly for far too long, and wish I hadn’t. The end result has been getting more work done more quickly, which in turn has increased my income, reduced my frustration, and given me extra time to enjoy the fun parts of being in a new city.

This little portable office setup now comes with me everywhere I go, whether I’m headed to the coffee shop down the road or a beachside bar thousands of miles away. My neck, wrists, ears, and bank balance would all get very upset if it didn’t.

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Do you have a portable office setup you’re happy with? Tell us about it in the comments!

Main image via Austin Distel, product images via Amazon