These Essentials Will Let You Work From Anywhere
As a freelance writer and editor, I’ve been working from home for over a decade. And because I have freedom of location, I’ve also worked from airplanes, Airbnb properties, coffee shops, camper vans, libraries, parks, and beyond. In 2020, my husband worked as a traveling nurse, and we moved every 12 weeks; I never had a “proper” desk setup and instead began to put together a mobile office that would allow me to work from anywhere.
“The people who write about working from home for Wirecutter have all been testing these products in their personal and professional lives for years,” said Wirecutter editor Erica Ogg, who covers all things related to power and working from home. “Our picks stand out for their quality, usefulness, and durability.”
Charge up
If you often work from a coffee shop, you’ll know the dread that comes with scoping out that one seat with access to an outlet! When will the person get up?
Having the right charger (and a cable long enough to reach an outlet that’s farther away) is a game changer. Our favorite laptop charger is Nekteck’s 60-watt GaN charger, which delivers enough power to charge all but the most demanding laptops at full speed.
Pair it with the Anker Nano USB-C Softline Cable, our favorite USB-C–to–USB-C Lightning cable for fast charging. As a 240 W cable, this Anker model is capable of fast-charging any laptop that can draw power over USB-C when paired with a high-wattage charger, such as the Nekteck charger we recommend.
Top pick
This portable charger has an AC outlet, two fast-charging USB-C ports, and a USB-A port, and it can charge even the most power-hungry laptops while they’re in use. But you need to provide your own wall charger.
For trips that might take you farther afield from your average coffee-shop outlet, the high-capacity (and physically hefty) Mophie Powerstation Pro AC is a powerful portable AC charging device. With a built-in AC outlet, two USB-C ports, and one USB-A port, it can charge even the most power-hungry laptops while they’re in use. You’ll need to provide your own wall charger, though.
Top pick
This smooth converter is handy for charging devices — especially cell phones and tablets — when you’re on the road.
Travelers may also be familiar with the need to charge gadgets while driving. When my husband and I loaded up our car for a 14-day cross-country roadtrip, we bought a Bestek 300W Power Inverter. It transformed our Prius’s round-plug, 12-volt direct current (12 V DC) outlet into a three-prong outlet with the same 120-volt current we were accustomed to using at home.
In addition to providing much-needed power for working on a tablet from a car, the Bestek inverter can charge a phone or laptop (though not as quickly as the devices above) or even power up an air pump (to, say, inflate a paddleboard). Years later, we still use the Bestek inverter, and it hasn’t slowed down in the slightest.