Why do people think remote work means I can just ‘bring my laptop’ anywhere?

I keep running into the same thing from friends and family:

“Just bring your laptop and come stay for a week!”
“You can work from anywhere, why you have to stay in xxx?”

I get that it sounds flexible from the outside, and I do appreciate the invites. But in reality, my workday still looks like a normal workday. Meetings, deadlines, focus time, decent internet, a quiet space, etc.

I’ve kind of stopped trying to explain it because I don’t want to sound ungrateful or like I’m making excuses. But it does get frustrating feeling like people think I can just turn any trip into a working vacation.

Curious how others handle this:

• Do you push back or just go along with it?
• How do you explain the reality without sounding dismissive?
• Any good one-liners or ways to set boundaries that don’t make it awkward?

Would love to hear how you deal with this.