Careful here. Absolutely start learning bash, but one of the points of Mint is that everything a normal user needs to do can be done through a settings gui. Don’t feel bad for reaching for the gui if you need to get something done and don’t have time right then and there to learn. Have fun!
Linode has some cool “turnkey” solutions for this. One example: https://www.linode.com/marketplace/apps/nextcloud/nextcloud/
So instead of doing a reverse proxy or vpn on self hosted hardware you would be renting linode servers that are already connected. Then you just have to follow the instructions to hook up a domain or add the relevant dns records.
Either way is fine it just depends on what you’re comfortable with and what you have on hand/want to buy.