@elise
you could also setup a NFS server accessible only from a vpn set up as a local net (for security reasons) and put some of your home config dirs in it via symlinks ^^

@Elisa having setup NFS at work for my students, I wouldn't recommend. NFS doesn't like it when a programme tries to open/stat a lot of files in short and random bursts. Sometimes even hangs waiting for the client to retry after a timeout.

I really prefer having a local copy, in the same way you do with rsync, except i use syncthing. I find it reliable as a "setup and forget" kinda tool.

@elise
just a word of caution, gnome seems to be perfectly okay with it but if you ever run cinnamon you have to blacklist (--exclude=) ~/.config/monitors.xml because if there's monitors that aren't on your local computer contrary to gnome, cinnamon will not like it

@elise here is my script if you want (with all good rsync options to keep all the file metadata including the hardlinks)