The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Henry, Emily. People We Meet on Vacation. Berkley, 2021. Paperback Edition.

The narrative opens five summers before the present day. Poppy Wright, a travel blogger, is on vacation on Sanibel Island with her best friend, Alex Nilsen. Poppy and Alex met in college. In spite of having opposite personality traits, they became friends after carpooling home during their first college summer vacation. Alex is now a high-school literary teacher who still lives in his and Poppy’s home town, Linfield. Poppy has worked hard to escape the town. She was bullied in high school, and her parents tend to make people feel uncomfortable. The Sanibel Island vacation is not perfect. However, on the last evening Alex takes a picture to remember their time together.

From this point on, the narrative weaves the present and past summer vacations together to explain the current relationship between Alex and Poppy. It turns out that the two friends had sex with each other during a summer vacation two years before the present date. After that, their contact with each other ended. Poppy revives it during the current summer. She realizes that she does not feel fulfilled in life. She contacts Alex and suggests that they go on a vacation together. He agrees and suggests that they combine the vacation with his brother’s wedding in Palm Springs.

Poppy now works for a travel magazine in New York City. She tries to convince her boss that she should cover Palm Springs for the magazine’s summer destination issue. However, her boss chooses another location. Poppy declines the assignment and says she needs a real vacation. Her boss grants her request. Poppy goes on the vacation with Alex. She is thinking that it will be like the past when they did inexpensive things, but they still enjoyed themselves.

The Palm Springs trip does not begin well. It is extremely hot. The car that Poppy rented from an individual is old and ends up having to be towed away. The air conditioning is broken in the apartment she rented. The pool is crowded and later closed. There are also problems with the excursions Poppy plans. The circumstances become too much for Poppy, and she tells Alex that she wants things to be the way they used to be between them. At first, he tells her that this cannot be because they have changed. However, after it rains, the heat in Palm Springs literally breaks. Poppy and Alex profess their love for each other. Their vacation improves as they are able to move into a hotel with the rebate the apartment’s owner gives them. They attend David’s wedding holding hands. However, during the wedding, Poppy has a conversation with David and realizes that she has stood between Alex and his college crush and on-and-off girlfriend, Sarah. When they go to the airport, she alienates Alex when she admits that the magazine did not pay for the trip and gives him the impression that she reconnected with him to cure her boredom. He tells her that she needs to decide what she wants in life.

An uninspired Poppy returns to work. Her boss realizes that something is wrong and suggests that she take some time for herself and talk to a psychologist. The person she recommends is the mother of Poppy’s best friend, Rachel. As a result of her therapy, Poppy begins to spend more time at home. She runs into a man who bullied her in high school. He apologizes for his behavior. Even though he still lives in her hometown, he has grown emotionally. He has a family, and he has achieved a successful career. Her therapy and this chance meeting make Poppy realize that she wanted to leave her hometown, travel, and meet different people because she thought that these actions would cure the loneliness she felt as a child. However, she now knows that she does not feel lonely when she is with Alex. She goes to Linfield and explains this to him. His first reaction is to tell her that he does not want her to change because of him. When she leaves, crying, he follows her and professes his love for her.

At the end of the narrative, Alex and Poppy are living together in New York. She has a new job covering local spots with a human focus. Her old boss is proud of her progress. Alex has a teaching job. They plan to spend their summer vacation in a foreign country and then go to Linfield. They will continue to renovate Alex’s grandmother’s house and see how it is living there. However, Poppy now knows that home is wherever Alex is living.