Memory and Nostalgia: The Bittersweet Pull of the Past in People We Meet on Vacation

Thematic Claim: Nostalgia as Comfort and Cage

In People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry examines how memory and nostalgia function as both a source of solace and a barrier to emotional growth. The novel’s central thematic claim can be stated this way: Nostalgia for past happiness can keep people from embracing the evolving present, and true fulfillment comes only when one learns to let go of perfect memories and accept imperfect, changing relationships. Protagonist Poppy Wright repeatedly clings to the idealized vacations she shared with Alex Nilsen, using those recollections as an emotional anchor. Yet these same memories prevent her from confronting the two-year rift between them. Henry traces Poppy’s arc through a series of flashbacks and present-day episodes, showing how nostalgia can freeze a person in time—and how breaking free from it allows for genuine intimacy.

Tracing the Theme Through the Plot

1. The Prologue: Preserving an Imperfect Moment

The novel opens with a memory: Poppy and Alex on Sanibel Island, taking a deliberately terrible photograph. Alex insists on using the regular camera instead of selfie mode, saying, “We just have to look like ourselves.” The resulting blurry, rain-soaked image captures nothing of the beach vacation Poppy’s followers expect. Yet Poppy treasures it because it feels true. She reflects, “I feel that same rush of warmth I get when I think about any of our past summer trips. That crush of happiness, that feeling that this is what life’s about: being somewhere beautiful, with someone you love.”

This moment establishes the dual nature of memory. The snapshot is ugly, but the emotional truth it represents is beautiful. Poppy deliberately chooses to remember the trip not as curated perfection but as a shared, flawed experience. Immediately after this scene, however, the narrative jumps to the present, where Poppy has not spoken to Alex in two years. The gap between the vivid memory and the painful present sets up the central tension: nostalgia offers warmth, but it also highlights what is lost.

2. Chapter 1: The Ache of a Lost Happy Place

In Chapter 1, Poppy tells her best friend Rachel Krohn that despite achieving her dream job and financial freedom, she feels “millennial ennui.” Rachel advises her to “retrace your steps” to find the last time she was truly happy. Poppy instantly knows the answer: “Two years ago, in Croatia, with Alex Nilsen.” Yet the memory is not purely comforting—it is accompanied by an “ache, a sadness.” Poppy scrolls back through her travel blog, rereading the Croatia post, and recognizes how miserable she was when she returned home. The memory is now tainted by the breakup of their friendship.

Here, nostalgia becomes a source of pain. Poppy cannot access the past without also feeling the sting of the present silence. The memory of Croatia is not a perfect jewel; it carries the weight of what went wrong. Henry shows that nostalgia can obscure as much as it reveals—Poppy remembers the happiness of the trip but has blocked out the reasons they stopped speaking.

3. Chapter 6: Attempting to Recreate the Past

Desperate to revive their friendship, Poppy texts Alex and proposes a new trip to Palm Springs, lying that her magazine has approved it. She plans to fund the trip herself, hoping to “recreate their old cheap vacations” and recapture the bond. This plan is a clear attempt to use nostalgia as a tool—she believes that if she can just repeat the formula of their earlier trips, the same closeness will follow.

Yet the plan is flawed from the start. Poppy is ignoring the two-year silence and the unresolved conflict that led to it. She treats the past as a blueprint, failing to see that both she and Alex have changed. This section exposes the contradiction in Poppy’s thinking: she wants to go back to an idealized version of their relationship rather than building something new. The nostalgia that once felt like a warm blanket now becomes a straitjacket.

4. The Palm Springs Weekend and Its Aftermath

The Palm Springs trip does not go as Poppy hoped. Old resentments surface, and a drunken kiss leads to a painful morning-after conversation. Alex says, “It shouldn’t have happened at all” and attributes it to alcohol. Poppy, humiliated, agrees to pretend it never happened. This moment is the breaking point of their nostalgia-driven reunion. The past cannot be re-created; it can only be learned from.

In the aftermath, Poppy and Alex stop speaking again. But eventually, in Chapter 36, Alex confesses that he has started therapy and admits his fear of being happy. He says, “You’re my home.” Poppy realizes that love is terrifying but worth the risk. The epilogue shows them living together in New York, navigating laundry and dishes, planning future trips but no longer trying to replicate the old ones. Poppy starts a new column, People You Meet in New York, leaving travel writing behind. She concludes, “Home is wherever Alex is.” This resolution represents a shift from nostalgic longing to present-tense commitment.

Character and Symbol Connections

Characters

Poppy Wright embodies the theme most directly. She is a travel blogger who curates her online life but privately clings to imperfect memories. Her journey is about learning that the past cannot be a blueprint for the future.
Alex Nilsen is more cautious about memory. He prefers to take a single terrible photo rather than a series of curated ones. He wants to remember “how it really was,” but he also struggles to move past the Croatia incident. His therapy helps him see that his fear of change is rooted in nostalgia for a version of Poppy he thinks he cannot keep.
Rachel Krohn serves as a foil. She posts curated imagery but openly mocks it, calling her feed “a feed of curated imagery meant to make you pine for a life that does not exist.” She values purpose over contentment and pushes Poppy to stop idealizing the past.
Swapna Bakshi (Poppy’s editor) and Sarah Torval (Alex’s ex) represent the pressure to conform to aspirational or perfect narratives. Swapna rejects Poppy’s Palm Springs pitch because summer in the desert does not fit the magazine’s “aspirational brand.” Sarah’s memory haunts Alex, but he must learn to let go of the idealized past to be present with Poppy.

Symbols

The Summer Trips: The annual trips become a symbol of Poppy and Alex’s friendship at its best. Poppy capitalizes the term in her internal monologue, treating it as a sacred event. Yet the symbol also becomes a prison—she cannot stop reusing the same template.
The Sad Puppy Face: Poppy uses this expression to manipulate Alex into agreeing to plans. It is a nostalgic callback to their early dynamic, but in Palm Springs it no longer works the same way. The symbol loses power as their relationship evolves.
The Snake Plant: Poppy keeps a snake plant in her apartment, a low-maintenance plant that does not demand much attention. It symbolizes her avoidance of emotional investment. By the epilogue, the plant is presumably still there, but Poppy has learned that relationships require more care than a succulent.
The Balcony Kiss: The kiss on the balcony in Palm Springs is a pivotal memory—it is the moment Poppy thought they might finally be together. But when Alex rejects it the next morning, the memory becomes tainted. Poppy must accept that the balcony kiss cannot be the sole foundation of their future.

Complexity and Contradiction

Henry does not treat nostalgia as purely negative. Poppy’s memories of the summer trips give her the courage to reach out to Alex again. When she scrolls through her blog, the happiness she felt is real—it is not an illusion. The problem is not memory itself but the demand that the present match the past. Poppy must learn that a new trip to Palm Springs cannot be a carbon copy of their first trip to Vancouver Island. She must also learn that Alex’s love can be just as real in a shared New York apartment as it was in a rented bungalow.

The novel also questions whether nostalgia is inherently escapist. The prologue’s terrible photograph is an act of resistance against curated perfection. In that moment, Poppy and Alex choose to remember honestly. But later, Poppy uses the memory of that honesty to avoid dealing with why they fell apart. Memory, like any tool, can be wielded for growth or for denial. Henry suggests that nostalgia becomes dangerous only when it prevents us from seeing the people in front of us.

Study Questions and Answers

How does the terrible photograph from the prologue encapsulate the novel’s view of memory?
The photograph is blurry and ugly, but it captures the emotional truth of the trip—imperfection shared between two people who love each other. It shows that memory can be valuable without being polished. Yet Poppy’s tendency to treat that moment as the perfect memory later prevents her from appreciating new, equally imperfect moments with Alex.
Why does Poppy cling to the Croatia trip as her “last truly happy” memory, even though the trip ended badly?
Poppy isolates the happy parts of the Croatia trip (the luxury, the time with Alex) and represses the conflict that ended their friendship. This selective memory gives her a goal to reclaim, but it also prevents her from examining what went wrong. Rachel’s advice to “retrace your steps” is ironic because Poppy retraces only the pleasure, not the pain.
What role does Rachel play in challenging Poppy’s nostalgia?
Rachel directly names Poppy’s problem as “millennial ennui” and insists that purpose matters more than contentment. She also mocks the curated lifestyle she herself sells, underscoring the gap between manufactured happiness and real happiness. Rachel’s tough love pushes Poppy to stop looking backward and start looking inward.
How does the symbol of the summer trips change from the beginning of the novel to the epilogue?
Early on, the summer trips represent freedom, intimacy, and escape from daily life. By the epilogue, Poppy and Alex still plan trips, but they are no longer the focal point of the relationship. The trips become a complement to ordinary domestic life, not a substitute for it. The symbol transforms from an idealized past to a flexible part of a grounded present.
In Chapter 36, Alex says he is “afraid to be happy.” How does this confession relate to the theme of memory?
Alex’s fear stems from the knowledge that happiness can be lost. He remembers how much he loved Poppy before the silence, and he is terrified that if they try again, he will lose her for good. His nostalgia for their old friendship is actually a fear of future pain. Poppy’s response—that he survived losing someone he loved and kept living—shows that memory of past loss can be a source of strength, not just a cautionary tale.