Don’t use your phone or keep things easy to grab in your parents if you are riding jeepney in Philippines. I have had people in past try and grab my shit. Nothing gone but they try really fast and move on. Mostly when we are stopped at a light.

A lot of us have money but we are still sensible with our spending. I make a great income from my job and live in a house me and my wife own in Philippines but of course we could go around to different areas spend more. Well we do but never long stay. Longest in a high cost area was 3 months in osaka as a home base and traveled from there. Was not cheap but worth the time.

I think the idea of a DN is living in an area with locals but above life style. Experience things we can’t in our own counties. Learn new cultures but why still having comforts from home. This can be done in many countries under 1k a month usd.

Not about being poor or broke but about being sensible.

I am also thinking retirement at 45 soon because i lived this life style for 20 years.

Doesn’t seem like you will have any issues but doesn’t hurt to have a vpn router anyway. They are great for those random times and you could vpn with the router into uk then your work for updates. You could buy a dedicated ip or server to keep the ip private. People in my area few part like 5 a month to buy a server and have traffic moving through that with wireguard.

But that was long message. It seems like you are fine without a vpn but i would have one anyway just the extra level of “anxiety”. Better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it.

Holy hell this.

Honestly you are in a pickle. If you can put the laptop in airplane mode + turn off blue tooth that might work? Still need a VPN Router. I would also recommended a few dry runs. Test in another country for few days come back etc. See if raises any red flags. - If location lock is on than that laptop is honestly pretty secured.
I might not even risk it then. I would maybe start looking for new job at this point. That is tough one.

I see others talking about remote desktop in but I can’t recommend that either. To many things can go wrong and if you out of country its a pain in the ass.

Go get a Cricket number/sim from states. I have been using them for years outside of country no problem. They also have wifi calling in the package too. I spend 50 a month and get unlimited everything.