Where Was ‘People We Meet on Vacation’ Filmed? Discover the ‘People We Meet on Vacation’ Movie Filming Locations

Netflix has declared it PoppyAlex week, and we couldn’t agree more, with the release of the People We Meet on Vacation movie on the streamer today.

Directed by Bretty Haley, with a screenplay by Yulin Kuang and Amos Vernon and Nunzio Randazzo, People We Meet on Vacation is the long-awaited film adaptation of Emily Henry’s best-selling 2021 novel. Emily Bader, best known as the star of the short-lived Amazon series My Lady Jane, stars in the film as Poppy Wright, a free-spirited travel journalist who loves taking vacations with her uptight BFF, Alex (played by the newest Hunger Games heart throb Tom Blyth). Though they insist they are just platonic vacay buddies, after years of traveling together every summer, Poppy and Alex slowly but surely fall in love.

Because this is a movie about a series of vacations, it would make sense for People We Meet on Vacation to have a long list of international filming locations. But in fact, the movie managed to get with filming in just two different countries. Read on to learn more about the People We Meet on Vacation filming locations.

Where was the People We Meet on Vacation movie filmed?

The People We Meet on Vacation movie was filmed primarily in two places: in Spain, around the Barcelona area; and in New Orleans, Louisiana.

In an interview for the People We Meet on Vacation press notes, director Brett Haley revealed, “We shot 65 percent of the film in and around Barcelona, in Spain. And then we shot 40 to 50 percent in New Orleans, in Louisiana,” Haley said. “You can’t pull off New Orleans in Spain. The biggest challenge of the film, by far, was how to pull off Canada, Tuscany, New Orleans, Ohio, and New York City in the Barcelona area.”

Haley continued, “My production designer, Bruce Curtis, did an incredible job of finding locations that we could make feel like Canada — which was very difficult to do. Tuscany was less hard. There are some areas of Spain that certainly have a Tuscany, Italy, countryside vibe. We didn’t use that many sets. Everything you see is mostly practical. I think the only set we had was Poppy’s apartment, and then we found a couple of locations in Spain that were also good for New York City. Then New Orleans was Boston and Ohio. So there’s a lot of invisible trickery going on to pull off the locations.”

The final scene of the movie, which recreates the cover of Emily Henry’s beloved novel, was filmed on a nude beach in Spain.

“We’re filming on this beautiful beach in Spain. What I did not know—and what Emily [Henry] certainly did not know—is that where we shot that scene was a nude beach. And it was packed. It was a Spanish holiday, so everyone was there,” Haley recalled, laughing, in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes. “Mostly men of a certain age. I hope people can just watch the movie, but later they can just watch it and know that just off frame, [nudity], everywhere. I’m directing the beginning and the ending of my film, and I’m just surrounded.”

Hey, it’s the European way! We’re pretty sure the beach Haley is referring to is the gorgeous Boadella Cove on the Costa Brava, which is north of Barcelona. And if you’re wondering what Alex is reading on the beach in that scene, if you look closely, you’ll see that the book’s author is Augustus Everett, a character from Emily Henry’s smash hit book Beach Read.

As for the New Orleans filming locations, some of those locations—according to sharp-eyed fans on Reddit—include Cafe Du Monde, Broadway and Fontainebleau, the Lower Garden District, and the Quarter.

“I want people to feel like, ‘Wow, they went all around the world to shoot this film,’ because that’s the way it should feel,” Haley concluded in his interview for the film’s press notes. I’d say the movie pulled it off! (That said, as someone who went to school in Ohio, it does not look that tropical and vibrant there, even in the summer. We don’t have plants like that!)