Working Remotely Effectively: Choosing Your Place, Network, and Setup

When you change cities often, your productivity depends less on willpower than on where you work and the connection you have. This article helps you compare possible places, test a coworking space before you pay, set up your workspace wherever you are, and protect your data on shared networks. It ends with the roaming rules that keep you from a painful bill while traveling.

Where to Work with a Laptop: An Overview of Places

Four setups come up again and again among digital nomads: home, café, coworking, and coliving. Hubs and coworking spaces offer shared, connected workspaces for a fee, for a few hours or for longer stays^[1]. They bring together employees of different companies, freelancers, and students, and are sometimes more conducive to work and concentration than home^[1].

Working from your apartment is entirely viable in countries where residential internet is solid: the WhereNext guide cites Romania, South Korea, Spain, and Portugal^[2]. Where the home connection is unreliable (Bali, some parts of Latin America), a backup coworking space becomes essential, again according to that guide^[2].

To choose between a café and coworking, the site RoamJobs, which is an editorial opinion rather than an official source, offers a frequency rule of thumb: for 1 to 2 days a week, a café is enough; from 3 days a week, or for very asynchronous work, coworking is almost always worth it^[3]. Its argument: café Wi-Fi can drop, the power can go out, and you may arrive without finding a seat, whereas coworking removes that variability^[3].

Coliving combines accommodation with access to a workspace^[2]. The same RoamJobs site warns that some properties focus more on coliving than on coworking quality, so check the workspace of the specific location before booking^[3]. The same goes for a coworking network: the operator Selina is excellent for flexible, social coworking, according to Earth SIMs, but for critical work you should verify the quality of the exact address before relying on it^[4].

Criteria to Check Before Choosing a Place

Start with a trial day, offered for between $5 and $25 at most spaces according to WhereNext. Test the speed at different times of day with fast.com or speedtest.net, and check the noise level, desk comfort, availability of meeting rooms (decisive for video calls), and the atmosphere^[2].

On bandwidth, Earth SIMs states that most remote work tasks require at least 10 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload, and that a Zoom or Google Meet video call needs 3 to 5 Mbps^[4]. The same site recommends running a speed test on your first visit: below 30 Mbps on a quiet day, the connection will be unusable at peak hours^[4]. These benchmarks come from a private website, so treat them as rough orders of magnitude.

Also consider the distance from your accommodation: walking is ideal, according to WhereNext, which also suggests checking for extra services such as printing or phone booths^[2].

Finally, take care of your setup. INRS recommends arranging your workstation to limit musculoskeletal disorders, whether you use a desktop or a laptop^[1]. Place it near a window to benefit from natural light^[1]. To reduce glare, INRS advises positioning the screen perpendicular to the window or adjusting brightness with curtains or blinds, increasing the screen brightness, or adding a task lamp^[1].

Physical Coworking: Costs, Formats, and Experiences

One figure to keep in mind: according to Earth SIMs, working in cafés costs $15 to $30 a day in food and drinks alone, at $4 to $8 per coffee^[4]. The site concludes that a coworking membership typically costs less than daily purchases^[4]. These amounts are indicative and vary by city.

Credit-based plans suit you if you alternate between an apartment, cafés and coworking spaces: Earth SIMs rates the Croissant plan at $99 with 5 credits, which the guide considers suitable for 2 or 3 days of coworking per week. Check what one credit covers (a half-day or a full day) before you choose^[4]. The same guide estimates that a day pass only pays off if you use a coworking space fewer than 8 to 10 days per month; beyond that, the monthly subscription costs less^[4].

The quality of a network depends on the location. Keep the example of Selina in mind: good for flexible, social coworking, but check it location by location for work that matters^[4]. That's why the trial day described above is worth doing before any subscription.

Recreating a Focus Zone Remotely

If no physical space suits you or you're in transit, you can recreate a focus zone remotely. The core principle is the same as in the office: a behavior is more likely when it's easy and less likely when it's hard^[5]. Reducing the steps for what you want to do (a shortcut, a ready-made template) and adding steps for what you want to avoid (logging out, removing the app) works better than relying on willpower^[5].

In practice, when facing digital distractions, the reliable lever isn't willpower but how you design your environment: turn off notifications by default, remove apps that grab your attention from the home screen, use "focus" modes, and physically move your phone away^[6].

Designing Your Environment for Multiple Projects

A workspace that makes the desired action easy (equipment ready, a dedicated focus spot) and the unwanted one hard (distractions out of reach) produces more consistency than willpower does. For a nomad without a fixed desk, actively setting up each workspace is a skill, not a detail^[7]. The most effective move is therefore to design your environment rather than weigh every temptation in the moment^[8].

When you're running several projects, separate your uses. The CNIL advises clearly distinguishing professional and personal use, for example with separate accounts within the same application^[9].

Also observe your own patterns: when are you most productive, and what triggers avoidance? Keeping a journal or notes reveals patterns that are invisible in the moment and lets you act on them, by adjusting your environment or planning for slow periods^[10].

Ideal Setup for Your Situation

If your home internet is reliable, the apartment is enough; otherwise, keep a coworking space as a backup^[2]. A backup connection plan stays useful even at coworking spaces: Earth SIMs points out that even the best coworking spaces have occasional outages and recommends a backup mobile connection, such as an eSIM with a data plan used as a hotspot^[4].

Official frameworks also recognize these places. In France, the civil service provides that an employee requesting remote work must specify in writing the desired locations: home, third-party workplaces, or coworking spaces^[11]. If you're an employee, check what your employer allows.

For long days, the INRS recommends setting fixed hours, for example by keeping the company's rhythm, with a "real" lunch break^[1], and building in phases where you can move around and step away from your workstation regularly^[1].

Pitfalls, Scams, and Points of Caution

Public Wi-Fi and Captive Portals

• A hacker can create a Wi-Fi access point under a restaurant's name and intercept all the traffic passing through it: always ask the staff for the exact network name rather than trusting the name displayed^[12].
• For sensitive data, prefer your carrier's mobile network; otherwise, stick to HTTPS sites and use a VPN, preferably a paid one or one you installed yourself^[12].
• If the captive portal asks for personal information, don't use your main email address, fill in only the minimum, and don't tick the box "share my data with third parties"^[12].
• Don't enable automatic connection to Wi-Fi networks other than those at your office or home, and turn off Wi-Fi when you're not using it^[12].
• Only connect to trusted networks and avoid shared access with third parties^[9].

Workplace Wi-Fi

A connection that collapses in the middle of a video call is a real risk: Earth SIMs notes that Wi-Fi under 30 Mbps on a quiet day will be unusable at peak hours^[4]. Test at several times of day before you commit^[2]. Also check the workspace of a coliving space in person before you book^[3].

Roaming bill

If you subscribe to a French operator, Arcep specifies that for mobile data while roaming, the operator applies by default a cap of €50 excl. VAT per month, unless you choose a different cap; it must warn you at 80% and then at 100%, and beyond that, roaming data is blocked unless you expressly request otherwise^[13]. This cap applies worldwide, but it does not cover voice calls or SMS^[13].

On board a ship or an airplane, roaming at domestic rates only applies as long as the phone is connected to a terrestrial mobile network; via an onboard network relayed by satellite, it is not regulated and can be billed without a cap^[14]. Turning off roaming or enabling airplane mode avoids these charges^[14].

Staying Connected on the Move: Roaming in the EU and Beyond

A subscriber of an EU or EEA operator who travels occasionally to another EU or EEA country (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway) pays no extra charges compared with their domestic rate for calls, SMS, and mobile data, nor any roaming activation fees^[15]. The operator may not provide a lower quality of service than in the home country when the same network generation (4G, 5G) is available on the visited network^[16].

This regime has one limit: fair use. The operator may observe, over at least four months, the time spent abroad and roaming consumption compared with domestic consumption^[17]. A risk of abuse is only established if you have spent more time abroad than in your home country and used your roaming allowance more than your domestic allowance^[17]. The operator must first warn you: you then have at least 14 days to change your usage, and fees can only be charged if the non-fair use continues after that period^[18]. For a digital nomad who lives long-term outside their subscription country, this is the point to watch.

For unlimited or very cheap per-GB plans, the operator may set a volume usable at domestic rates while roaming, at least equal to twice the monthly price excluding VAT of the plan divided by the wholesale data cap (€1.10 excl. VAT/GB in 2026); example: a plan at €22 excl. VAT per month gives at least 40 GB^[19]. Beyond that, a surcharge capped at €1.10 excl. VAT per GB may be charged in 2026, then €1.00 excl. VAT per GB from January 1, 2027^[20].

Outside the zone, this regime does not apply: Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, or Turkey are not part of it, even though some operators voluntarily extend it to them^[21]. The countries covered in 2026 are the 27 EU member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, as well as Ukraine and Moldova since January 1, 2026, with exceptions for certain combinations^[21].

Steps, in Order

• Define your rhythm: number of workdays, video calls, need for concentration, budget.
• Shortlist two or three locations and test each one for a day, running speed tests at different times^[2].
• Choose the least committing option (day pass or credits) before you subscribe^[4].
• Set up your workspace, turn off notifications, and enable a focus mode^[6].
• Secure your connection: use a mobile network for sensitive data, otherwise HTTPS and a VPN^[12], and plan a backup connection^[4].
• Note your productive periods to adjust location and hours^[10].