What if you want to work remotely from somewhere other than your house, but you’re not sure your boss will let you?
The sensible thing is probably to have an open discussion about it with your company. But if you just prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, then you could simply choose to work remotely while hiding your location.
I’m a travel blogger, so I luckily only work for myself. But I’ve also shared work trips with friends whose employers did not have clear remote work policies. Determined not to draw the Eye of Sauron of their corporate head offices, my friends wanted to make sure their IP address would not reveal their true location.
Yes, it is possible that your boss is watching you. Using your IP address (a series of dots and numbers), someone can easily trace your location while you’re logging in from out of office.
But… there are also ways of making this impossible.
Quick solution: use VPN software
The easiest way to mask your location is to use VPN software.
This lets you access the internet through a secured encrypted connection that can be routed via a server anywhere in the world.
Think of it as making a secret tunnel through the internet from your device to an endpoint somewhere. To anyone looking at your activity online, they won’t see where you’re tunneling from, they will only see the location where it popped out.
For example, I could be physically in Belgium, but use a VPN connection to make it appear like I’m in the UK.
Using VPN software will ensure that no one can know your real location by checking your IP address (internet address), whether it’s your boss, clients, or IT department.
You do need to get a subscription to a VPN service to do this. It’s a paid service as encrypting and rerouting your internet connection takes resources. Personally, I’ve used ExpressVPN, Tunnelbear, and NordVPN.
I like NordVPN the most as it is not so expensive while offering high speeds and tons of locations. When using their VPN, I’ve easily had multiple video streams running concurrently (e.g. Zoom and Netflix) without issue.
How to use a VPN:
- Create an account and subscribe at NordVPN.
- Download the app for your device or browser (e.g. Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
- In the app, select a location from which you want to appear
I recommend using an app for your operating system rather than your browser, as this will take care of your entire internet connection and not just your browser activity.
Advanced solution: get a travel router
The solution above is easy because you can set it up within 5 minutes.
But there may be situations where you may want to use a VPN-enabled travel router instead.
For example:
- If you want to share the same VPN connection across multiple devices (laptop, phone, etc.)
- If you are traveling with other people who also want to use the VPN
- If your work computer doesn’t allow you to install any apps
- If your company already uses a corporate VPN (you can’t have two VPNs at the same time on the same device)
I recently went on a remote work trip with some friends, some of whom didn’t want their location known to their employers. I purchased a small travel router that works seamlessly with my NordVPN account.
I bought this GL.iNet GL-AR300M Mini Travel Router. It was only 30 Euros (about $35 USD) and yet it did everything it needed to do without a hitch.
You can see how small it is in the picture above, where it’s sitting next to the broadband router of an Airbnb we were staying.
This tiny router can log on to any WiFi signal (or LAN cable connection), encrypt it via VPN, and then make this secured connection available via its own WiFi signal.
To set it up takes a few more steps, but it’s not too complicated.
- Get the GL.iNet 300M mini router at Amazon
- Plug it in using the USB cable
- Log onto its WiFi signal (the details are on the back)
- Go to the address http://192.168.8.1 in your browser
- Follow these instructions to set up NordVPN
You can have any of your devices connected to this travel router. All connections will appear to come from the location you select in NordVPN. If you use this travel router, there is no need for any apps.
Why use a travel router?
A neat advantage of using a travel router such as this is that it also acts as a WiFi signal repeater, which can help ensure a solid connection at your remote work location.
One vacation apartment I stayed had good WiFi downstairs but poor WiFi upstairs; by placing the travel router near the stairs, the internet now reached both areas.
The GL.iNet 300M travel router can also connect to 4G or 5G if you plug in a USB SIM card adaptor. That’s nice to have as a fallback option should the WiFi in your remote location let you down. (If you want SIM card functionality built-in, try the GL.iNet E750.)
One thing to note is that this mini travel router only has so much processing speed. While traveling and working remotely, I had a 120 Mbps fiber connection available at one point, but the travel router could only offer around 15 Mbps max when running through NordVPN. This should be more than plenty for most users, but it is still a limitation.
If you’re a techie and worried about any bottlenecks, you might want to get a proper chonky router that can work with OpenVPN or WireGuard.
For my purposes, I didn’t think it was worth the added expense, though a router such as the Linksys WRT3200ACM would give you higher throughput and let you boost the WiFi signal a lot further as well (such as into the garden, balcony, etc. of where you might be staying).
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I have travelled to over 700 places and lived in 8 countries. The most difficult internet I have encountered is in China. I lived in China for 14 years and tried every VPN on the market. I have to testify that Nord connected most often with less connection drops than any other service. All of Nord’s competitors have a solid and timely refund policy so I never lost money yet it was connectivity that I wanted above all else. VPN affords anonymity as well as the ability to get past government firewalls when it works. Nord was the best in China. It did get blocked at times but Nord’s service response is quick and they monitor performance in restricted countries. It’s sort of like whack a mole but Nord get whacked less. When they do get shut down they are fast in recovering. NOTE: Remember to get the service before you enter a restricted country unless you want to spend countless hours looking for a way to download the software which is blocked. I found out the hard way and spent close to 3 days using Shadowsocks to breakthrough with just enough time to download the installation software. Shadowsocks works and is free but it is easily detected by firewall algos and is usually shutdown in seconds to a few minutes. Be proactive and download Nord before you go. I do not want to appear as a Nord fanboy yet the service is reliable and has a good selection of other safety measures you can enable for no additional cost.
Great tips! I once had a 36hr layover in Beijing and had forgotten all about the restrictions there. It was fine to be offline for this short time but if I’d stayed any longer I would have really wished for a VPN.