Sure, you can use SSH tunneling. The limitation of that is that you have to map out which specific ports you want to go where, at the time of your connection. The advantage is that there's nothing else to configure on the server/router end--once SSH is set up (and tunneling is allowed, which it is by default), you're good to go. A VPN solution (like OpenVPN) does require some setup and configuration on the server end, but once that's done, can give you access to everything on your LAN. SSH can definitely do the job, but it seems like it's more what a VPN is designed for.