Working from the beach sucks
Sorry to break it to you.
When I began working remotely in early 2017, I thought it was the best thing ever.
The first thing I did was plan a trip to some beach locations, and a few days later, I took off.
It didn't take long to realize that the romantic image of working with your laptop on some paradisiac Caribbean beach is not exactly how I imagined it would be.
5 Reasons why working from beach sucks
It might look cool in a stock photo, but the beach is far from an ideal place to work on a laptop.
1. Horrible ergonomics
Working on a hammock, as the lady on the top left might look really cool but upon closer inspection, you'll notice she has to keep her head up to even see the laptop.
Now, of course, some people manage to pull this off for a few hours but it's impractical and the coolness factor quickly wears off.
2. Laptops don't like the sun 🌞 💻
Even the fanciest MacBook Pros with +1 000 nits of peak brightness will have a hard time shining through the glare produced by the sun.
Direct exposition to the sun will make your laptop get hot, really hot.
Remember, most laptops have fans for a reason. The internal components can only take so much heat before they slow down, malfunction, or worse, get damaged.
Even if your laptop has a badass cooling system to protect its components, some of the heat will end up transferring to your lap, which is nice when you're all cozied up in a winter destination, but it's really uncomfortable under the burning sun of the tropics.
3. There's a bucket load of wind 💨
There are usually not that many buildings at the beach that could shelter you from the wind.
If you're taking a work call, the wind flapping against your headphones' mic will make it impossible to hear you.
You'll also get all sorts of dirt particles in your eyes which will make your face twitch throughout that entire 2-hour, all-company meeting that should have been an email.
4. Don't forget the sand ⏳
Do you know what else comes with the wind? Sand.
And the beach has a lot of it.
If you've ever spent some time lying on a sandy beach you'll know sand has the habit of getting anywhere and everywhere.
And that goes for your laptop as well. Cleaning sand beach out of the hinges or, heaven forbid, a butterfly keyboard, can be a pain in your sandy rear.
5. No wifi, no power plugs
If you're nomading in big cities and have a good data plan then this won't be an issue.
Yet many nomads want to venture into exotic natural places and see the world —that's the whole point, right?
When you start going to exotic places you start missing the fast and reliable data of the big cities. Some of the best beaches I've seen don't even have good reception at all.
But hey, perhaps that's a feature, not a bug.
The last thing is battery life.
No matter how long your laptop's battery life is, Murphy's law says eventually you'll have to charge it and newsflash, there are exactly zero power plugs at the beach. That's right, I counted them.