I built my own secure network in the cloud to access my home PCs remotely - for free

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I just got back from an extended vacation that took me to three countries over nearly three weeks. It was supposed to be a relaxing getaway, but I couldn't avoid work entirely. To stay connected, I needed access to two PCs running in my home lab. Those machines are available 24/7, hosting a handful of virtual machines where I'm testing Insider builds of Windows 11, and managing other critical tasks for my business.

When I'm sitting at my desk connected to my home-office network, I can use any Remote Desktop client (including Microsoft's Windows App ) to connect directly to any of those machines, physical or virtual. But when I'm out of the office, that network is secured behind my router and unavailable for any outside connections.

All six of these Windows PCs - two physical, four virtual - are available for remote access on my Tailscale network, or tailnet.

If I just needed access to one of those PCs every once in a while, I could use Chrome Remote Desktop or a service like TeamViewer , which is free for personal use. But I'd rather find a secure way to use the tools I already know and trust, regardless of whether I'm at home or on the road.

The answer is Tailscale , a free service that creates a secure private network between all my devices - not just PCs and Macs but also mobile devices. Those devices can connect securely over the internet as though they were all on the same local network, without requiring me to tinker with options on my router or mess with firewall settings.

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The result? While I was out of the office, I clicked a shortcut in my Windows App and connected to one of the virtual machines back in my office. It opened effortlessly, even when I was using a slow airplane connection or tethered to my mobile phone on a roaming network.

Many remote-access and VPN services use a hub-and-spoke model, with encrypted packets from remote PCs (the spokes) flowing through a central server or a VPN gateway (the hub). That model works fine, but it tends to be (a) expensive and (b) slower than you might like, adding latency to every connection.

Tailscale, on the other hand, works like a peer-to-peer mesh network. My machines back in the office are running the lightweight Tailscale client software, and so is the laptop stuffed into my travel bag. They're all authenticated using a secure identity service. I've tested Tailscale with GitHub and Microsoft Entra ID, but I could have chosen Google or Apple as the identity provider or used passkeys managed by 1Password, Bitwarden, or YubiKey.