Being stuck in Peru convinced me I need a Chromebook

When disaster strikes, it never hurts to have an extra Chromebook.

That’s what I learned when I had a friend visit me in Lima, Peru, where I was working remotely for the month of March. We were planning to hike and camp in Cusco and the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. But instead of a bucket-list trip, a strict nationwide quarantine kept us cooped up in our apartment rental three days after she arrived. Suddenly my friend went from vacation mode to work-from-home mode, but she had only brought her iPhone. 

So while I worked, she attempted to do as much as she could from her smartphone, which was mostly checking her email. If I took long-enough breaks she’d snag my work MacBook Air. Because U.S. government sites aren’t very mobile-friendly, it was especially useful for registering for repatriation flights back to the United States. 

She was here long enough that our lease ended on our apartment and we moved into a new place with an American couple who had brought an extra Chromebook. My friend happily accepted when they offered to loan her the device. 

For the next two weeks, she gratefully used their 2019 Dell Inspiron Chromebook 11. She no longer had to listlessly stare at her phone while we clicked and clacked away at our keyboards, getting work done. She joined the crew that assembled every morning in the living-room-turned-coworking-space. (She eventually snagged a seat on a private charter flight after being in Peru for a full month.)

A Chromebook is very much what it sounds like: A computer that lets you run the Chrome web browser and other Google programs like Sheets and Docs. It’s basic. 

Any small, basic notebook computer would have pulled through in this situation, but with a Chromebook there wasn’t any learning curve. My friend signed into her Google account and she was off and running. 

Keep in mind, she could write emails, sign into Zoom calls, and, if she wanted, stream Netflix shows, but she wasn’t able to run her heavy programming software or play any games that weren’t an app on the Google Play store. She wasn’t about to use the laptop forever, but for the moment it was a saving grace.

The Dell she was using is no longer available with the touchscreen, but similar models are still out there with 4GB of memory, 32GB of storage, and 10 hours of battery life, and a price tag below $500.

My friend’s plight didn’t directly affect me, but regardless, from now on I’m always traveling with a Chromebook. I saw firsthand how in bad situations having a back-up computer makes everything a little less stressful. Not just during a pandemic. What if your main laptop breaks on your next trip? Or gets stolen? 

Packing a lightweight $300 gadget that can keep me, or a fellow stranded traveler, working, connected, and getting paid is entirely worth it.  

Chromebooks are available from many different brands, many for a low starting price (even under $200). Here are some options: