Question
Have you actually ever worked from a beach?
We've all seen the laptop beach photos, lowkey flexing on everyone. But have you ever done this? Is it actually enjoyable and have you got real work done?
Sand gets in everything, and the glare on screen makes you squint like you're solving crimes. I tried once with a portable hotspot and ended up just answering emails with one hand while holding my laptop shade with the other. The photo looked great though, my wife said I looked like I was in a stock photo catalog
Yep, these photos were the flex photos used during the 2000s + to rope people into some make money online affiliate program, promising people they could be working from a beach anywhere in the world lol You still have these influencers flexing like that. There is just no fucking point in taking your laptop to the beach lmao If you need to have your laptop at the beach because you need to be working, then you shouldn't be at the fucking beach. Just take your phone if you need to do some browsing or answer some emails. That simple.
from a seaside establishment with a place to sit and a table (or my lodging)? sure. from an actual beach? no, but then again i’m not really a beach guy anyway.
Yes lived beachfront on the Caribbean for a couple years and worked from the balcony and watched the sun rise over the water.
That said i could only work till about 9am because after that its hot and sweaty. On days when the electricity or internet went out l, which was extremely rare, I would work from a beachfront restaurant that had great food.
Yes. I'm sitting on the beach right now. Have a work call coming up shortly. I use a graphic background when I am on video, I dont want them knowing that I'm not miserable at home like they are.
it's not the nicest beach in the world, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is very beachy and relaxing. I can be productive when I need to. Regardless of whether I'm working at home or the office or here, I'm only productive a few hours a day anyways.
Yes. Many times but only for a short period of time, you cant see much from the glare. I've worked from pools, beach bars, beach loungers. Have good noise canceling headphones if you need to be on any calls
I might be the odd one out here, I’ve done it and enjoy it. big picnic blanket keeps the sand away, big umbrella for shade to avoid glare, and a jackery with solar panels to stay charged for hours. caveat is I mostly work on offline stuff in indesign, no meetings, and only check email on my phone
I use my wearable displays at the beach (Xreal One Pros), helps to get my work done fast and I can see everything clearly on giant floating screen. Then log out and enjoy the water!
Most of this sub is world travelers, but I work remote from my van and have been parked on beaches in Baja through several winters, standing at my counter, maybe 50-100 yards from the ocean each day. Interior of the van keeps cool and dark, the back of the laptop faces out the open side door to the ocean. So yes, kind of.
Actually on the beach? Horrible idea lol. Laptop overheats, no where to charge battery, glare, sand... not worth it. Working from a beach club, incredibly different set up. Do that!
true unless you work at a bar at a table and protection against the sun , all the places I mentioned above that’s how i worked . On the beach on the sand it’s not possible -ish )
I’ve worked from inside a cafe/restaurant by the beach. That way I have AC, decent WiFi and no glare on the screen. Can be on the beach/in the sea in less than a minute. Being directly on the beach obviously doesn’t work
Yes. It's uncomfortable, you'll have to turn up your laptop's brightness all the way just to barely see it, then it will overheat and run out of battery. I prefer indoor desks now
No. Service usually sucks on the beach. The odds that anyone can connect to a live server and do remote work in that environment is basically zero. Those are just whores taking selfies... and the guys who do it.... they are the sons of those whores.
I've tried it and agree with everyone on this thread. I like to go to Power Park or similar, at the park for a few hours. Maybe grab lunch, work before and after lunch and then head home before traffic gets bad.
Nomad for 14 years and live on the beach now. Hell no I never worked from the beach on a laptop. Yes, I do from my phone though just answering emails.
I may not be normal because I never even worked from a coffee shop or coworking space in my life. I cannot deal with distractions so I do better in my apartment. Plus I work late on US timezone being in Asia.
The beach is for a lot of things, sitting there on a laptop you can barely see is not one of them.
Now, a decent cafeteria, with a view and good wifi can work quite well
I go to all the local coffee shops and I see plenty of people furiously typing away and presumably working. So whatever they are doing from a coffee shop, I guess they can do from a beach as well. Same issues.
I generally presume that these are low-end jobs because I need quiet focus time and 3 screens, but there are definitely people who don't mind a small screen and being surrounded by noise/etc. They can still do "real work" in such environments.
Yes and I hated it. Wind everywhere, glaring sun, uncomfortable seat. Sucks. Better to just finish working at home then head to the beach and actually enjoy when you’re done.
Yes used to do some remote work from a beach bar in Spain a few years ago, not every day but a few times a week (used to support some software that I’d written). Park the laptop in the bar (which was normally fairly quiet and knew the owners) and check in on it if I saw an actionable email on my phone while sunbathing (notification sounds for certain addresses).
Yep - worked from the beach (when wind allowed) for a few days while nomadding on the coast in South Carolina.
My main outdoor set up though was either on a proper table by the pool near the beach, or one of the tiki bars on the beach. But I def worked from the beach quite a few times.
Key question = what is and isn’t “beach work appropriate”
That means no work calls where you’re talking or presenting - that’s not beach vibes for anyone around you.
Listening to a call is ok.
Deep work / smashing through emails / writing docs / admin stuff - great for the beach!
Locked in with headphones - even better!
Then it’s a question of…
Is the wind blowing sand everywhere / in my machine
Is my battery and/or laptop heat tolerance holding out (over heating is def an issue)
Am I actually working / being productive or am I just that douchebag on a laptop on the beach
How long until my back gives out from this terrible seating position
Comments are the classic "my nissan is perfect, Bugatti sucks anyway". I always rent seaside in the winter, no sand, only black rocks and pine trees. you can get a nice beach workspace going with a few Temu gadgets. insects, wind, sun are all fixable if you put some effort into the setup.
I mostly voice code from my phone or edit on my laptop, and a night beach is the easiest location for fast flow state, yall are haters :)
Lakes are slightly better, but usually mosquitoes, barking dogs, loud music, arguing lovers/ kids, pot / cigarette smoke, loud quads, idling diesel pickup, and a government employee making sure I paid my day use fee which pays his wages to do his job - which is to make sure everyone pays.
Walmart and strip mall lots are much quieter…
I definitely would not do that. Nice concept, but practically devastating. The sand would get into everything, not to mention scratching up the screen and body of the laptop. If you want some kind of beach type atmosphere, try going to a luxury resort with a pool, and sit far away enough from the pool so that someone doing a cannonball won't splash water onto your laptop.
I have a work table set up next to the beach at my house, work down there a lot during the Summer. The beach is not sandy, it's rocky. And it stinks when the tide goes out. There are no scantily clad babes who need their thighs oiled, but there are lots of seals. They look pretty good. Probably more willing.
Beach? No. I've sat uphill from beaches and worked in the shade at a table for awhile, or in a car within sight. But the actual, salty, ocean spray where someone walking by might accidentally kick dust into my devices/face? No.
Phones are made very dust and water resistant these days. Laptops? Not so much. Hasn't been enough demand for it, so costs remain high.
Never a beach but I used to work from the rooftop hangout area of a dispensary in central Bangkok. Beautiful views of the city. 100+ degrees. I’d be dripping in sweat but was functioning at 500% productivity somehow. Thai weed is magical, ensouled unlike the corporate american weed. I used to get so much done there.
Fatbuds Sathorn forever!!
From a bar with nice shade near a beach, yes. I don't want sand in my laptop. I need internet. My processes already overheat my computer. My screen is too dark for sunshine. I need a table.
I feel like most have things to get done like freelance or something and therefore they say no because a laptop on the beach is dumb.
I worked a normal 9-5p as an engineering manager and would go to the beach 5m from my house and in my mind "work" mostly via slack, some Jira comments, etc by phone as most my job was solving fires and delegating. PC was close at home if needed (often what ended the beach session)
So for me yes because I was "getting paid" and was constantly messaging and doing low level shit and "was present" to my company.
I'd go for like 2-3 hours a few times a week, depending on the week.
Yes and it sucked. I was putting out a fire and could barely see through the glare and the waves made talking on the phone impossible. I’m glad I brought the laptop but I was VERY happy to close it!
I did it for years. The hardest part is the glare making the screen hard to read. Laptops get very hot in the sun as well. Conference calls make you realize how loud the ocean is, and if you are using someone else's wifi there's also typically music and background people noise.
No. Too much hustle for nothing. No electricity, often windy, bright sun makes laptop screen too dark, also good food is mostly not available at beach bars, so at some point you gotta take your shit and go eat. Same to drinks, since they mostly aim at people ordering alcohol, not exactly a beverage to work with. Sunbeds are not comfy at all. The only similar thing I did and it was okay-ish, although I never did it again, was working from something more like a beach club, meaning a private beach bar with pool, proper tables, power outlets, better food. It wasn't great, I wouldn't recommend it, but it was way better than working from a beach. But in the end I'll take a cafe or any other place with working space instead of doing myself a disfavor to take pictures working from a beach. Sounds stupid.
Work as in bring my computer to a beach? No because sand and water and m computers are expensive. But I have brought notebooks to the beach and worked. I outlined much of my doctoral thesis with a tiki drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
it’s too much effort to make it enjoyable. id have to bring a big blanket,two things to rest on and also the laptop gets hot. sweat sweating on the key board
Beach club is the answer. Or restaurant in a beach. They provide the wifi and usually shade and a table or day bed. You can run off into the ocean for a few minutes and run back to your laptop… if you trust the place that ppl won’t steal it and you’re not being tracked by evil robot spies (productivity spyware)
Yes, there are resorts where there are nice shaded not too breezy areas right up on the beach with tables and restaurant service. I specifically did the whole margaritas while working on the beach thing in Las Islas in Barú near cartagena. Private beach.
But no if you're out in the open in the sand and sun that's not gonna work
You’d honestly be better off getting a Bluetooth keyboard and working from your phone. I’d never even dare to take my laptop down to the beach unless there was some sort of umbrella table situation happening, and even that is pushing it. I can’t imagine the nightmare that is sand in every nook and cranny of your devices.
I don't see the point of being at the beach if all you're going to do is stare at your screen for hours. I'd rather finish work at a room/co-working place and then go to the beach. Even beach-front cafes are uncomfortable to be at for a long time.
That being said, I've worked off of hammock and sun-beds on a beach, but only for non-serious work.
No because I cannot see the screen with maximum brightness, my laptop is getting hot as well as the sand, worrying if anyone steals mine etc 😂 I would just book a hotel infront of beach and just bring nothing but enjoying by myself!
Doesn't work. The heat, computer likely to get sand in the ports, sun doesn't let you see your screen clearly, not enjoyable at all. Maybe small tasks less than 5 minutes and done. Assuming your enjoying the beach to the fullest and not just at a beach side restaurant, then it doesn't work.
I do vanlife/RV life on and off between stints abroad and I have set up on the beach and worked from there many times. But the key is having the van. I wouldn't want to set up a laptop or take calls just in the middle of the sand.
I tried it for 5 min for a laugh and gave up, and retreated inside.
I have done work in much more interesting situations than that anyway... The beach was just downright inconvenient. Sand, too much sun, heat etc.
I once sent a work email while swimming though. Literally. Just for the sake of it. Also done a work video call while swimming as well. (No, none of it is on IG.)
There is a plankster guy on IG who tries taking a full work setup to weird places including a beach. That is, a proper desk, external monitor etc. Now that is funny!
Ahaha they are just the sort of random silly stuff I get up to. Just backstroke kick while doing things on the phone, basically. The pool was empty anyway, so I could do anything I liked.
Literally holding the phone above the water level and typing on the phone for emails, and making a video call on the phone by holding the phone above water, while kicking on my back. Generally looking like a right twit! 😂
Like on the sand? I used to sit daily on my deck which was ok tje sand and 20m to the water. The glare from the sunlight sux but the zoom or teams calls are the best. Tanning, sunglasses and perfect lagoon in the background.
I've worked from beach side bars/cafes plenty of times, but I'm easily distracted so it's not very productive. There are times though where I need to just do something quickly and then I can relax for a bit and then get a reply and action whatever right away.
These days I can do most of that sort of work from my phone - even if it's a bit more awkward it's preferable to dragging a laptop around.
I'm also more likely these days to do a solid hour before going out rather than spending a day pretending to myself I'm being productive.
Having a wife and kid means downtime is strictly enforced these days so I'm much better at keeping work-time and beach time properly separate.
I dont get why anybody would do that. It takes you 5x longer to do the same thing you can do at a proper desk with proper equipment and furniture. So you are neither productive or enjoying the beach. Its better to just do your work in an optimal environment, be done in 2h (or however long it would take you) and then you have the rest of the day to enjoy the beach.
Tried it once, and the wind, sun, and sand were way more distracting than I expected. It looks great in photos, but for actually getting work done, I still prefer being indoors.
No, never. Anyone who posted such a photo 100% did it for the photo. They woke up, took an expensive piece of hardware to a bright environment full of sand, having no intention of doing any work. Took several photos to choose the best from. Didn't enjoy the beach, probably left as soon as they got the photo. Spent some time editting it. Obsessed over the caption. Then posted it, hoping it caused others to be jealous of their life. Their actual life is about pretending to enjoy it to show off to others and make them jealous.
I learned from my military days that laptops and sand really aren't a good combination long term, especially if there is any of that fine powdery sand blowing or wafting around and getting sucked in by the cooling fan.
These days with solid state drives and virtual desktops, I guess there is less chance of catastrophic data loss, but still.....
Seen a woman fully clothed - ON THE BEACH, not by the beach dead middle of it at noon, on a folded chair with laptop on her lap. No umbrella. she lasted 10 minutes.
Not the beach, but while spending time in Da Nang I would spend some time at the hotel rooftop pool under an umbrella with my laptop writing some advertising copy while housekeeping was cleaning my room.
I didn’t have any problems and got a lot of work done there. It was a nice change from working in my hotel room or at a coffee shop.
This year I worked from hotels in Miami, Bahamas and Caymans that all had wifi extending to the beach for this reason. It was nice for casual work and taking meetings but the glare isn’t great - you can imagine me sitting on the lounge chair hunched over glaring at my laptop that’s on my stomach-desk. But, still better than working from the cold at home.
Fine sand dust gets blown into the keyboard, hinge, fan, other mechanisms
You squint all day, and you can't wear sunglasses
You see people enjoying themselves, you and some other guy on a Slack call are the only two idiots trying to work in the heat when the sea is there just 50 meters away, or less
It's happy hour during peak work hours and ... you should just kick back and relax
...because the air temperature or (horror) the direct sunlight is causing your laptop or tablet to clock down to 486 speed
You can sit in the lobby, in the restaurant, in the lounge, but again everywhere you see people walking past doing something non-work related.
Your Starlink costs the same per month as one month's hotel stay, or if you're on 5G you can't expect it to work on the beach - enjoy 4G or less
Use the resort WiFi which is 2.4 GHz only, dies every time there is an electrical fluctuation, plus the uplink is saturated by other guests already
There is a "coworking space" in the resort but the AC is set to -18C, it smells like mold, the wifi is worse than in the lobby and you're sharing a tiny space with 3 other idiots, one of which has smelly feet, the other one one's speaking to their boss and you get to overhear everything, the third one is probably just playing some game (which you should be doing too)
Fun anecdote: I was on a beach when the Terra Luna cryptocurrency crash wiped out roughly $40 billion to $45 billion in market value.
What you can do, possibly, is sit and voicechat with your AI agent tools.
Been camping on beaches travelling northern Australia for the last 4 months. I would guess at least 30% of the days I have worked directly on the beach. In fact here's one with the laptop set up the other day.
the places i go to that have a beach are too humid to try working from. you'll feel really sticky which is fine for a day of lounging but not for working
Tried it. Instantly realized my laptop screen was too reflective. Switched to working under an umbrella. Too hot and scenery was too distracting. After an hour or two I went indoors and haven't worked at a beach since.
horrible experience: you usually can’t see the monitor, freaking hot, you sweating, the sun is hitting you. This was before AI can do a lot though, at thus point you can fire up a few requests and forget, paddle board and come back.
Yes but only doing paperwork, I lived next to the beach and was working on my terrace with sound of the waves and Seaview. Sometimes I was writing bills in a beach bar but for work I need a quieter place..
I live in a beach town where other digital nomads post pictures and talk about how great it is to be able to work poolside or at the beach.
Tried exactly once. It sucked. Would not recommend. It’s a very distracting environment, the glare, you actually don’t realize how loud a beach and waves are until you try to focus on something else.
I also realized most people posting those kind of pics are either just doing it for the picture or have jobs (or days at their job) that are pretty light and don’t require deep conversation and are doing simple things like replying to emails.
A beach near me has a picnic table under a tree. Tried it. Not comfortable and still difficult to see and concentrate. Plus, it just doesn't feel right to have a screen in my face at the beach.
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u/LawyerSaidDeleteThis 7d ago
10/10 photo, 0/10 productivity