The Strange Grief of Watching Our Vacation Towns Grow Up

"Vacation towns hold a special kind of mythology. They're often stitched from storybook fragments: childhood memories, family reunions and a rare peace that only comes with knowing a place by heart. Whether it's a lakeside hideaway your parents claimed each August or a mountain village where you first learned to ski, the magic of a vacation town is that people return year after year, chasing a feeling as much as a place."

"In the winter, Vail's population nearly doubles with part-time residents; come summer, Montauk's roads crawl with traffic despite just 4,000 permanent residents. My own family stopped gathering at our mountain cabin as we got older, but I still feel a particular kind of grief when I hear how the pine-scented town of my memory has changed. Giant residential complexes now loom where wood-clad houses once were. Five-star hotels have edged out mom-and-pop inns. Once sleepy streets are reportedly choked with weekenders."

"My boyfriend's family has spent the past 30 years returning to the island, and every summer comes with its own elegy for what's gone. "This used to be the sleepy bar where we'd grab beers after the kids went to bed!" his dad said in disbelief this summer, shouting over the din of what's now a sloshing-cocktails and $45 lobster rolls-type restaurant. That loving recall - equal parts tender and frustrated - is at the heart of how we talk about these places."

Vacation towns carry a mythology built from childhood memories, family reunions, and a familiar peace tied to repeated returns. People chase feelings as much as places, whether lakeside hideaways or mountain villages. Seasonal population surges transform towns like Vail and Montauk, and longtime family rituals can fade as cabins and local haunts change. Luxury developments and hotels replace small houses and inns, and sleepy streets become crowded with weekenders. Social media amplifies hidden gems, overtourism strains infrastructure, and climate change reshapes landscapes. The result is a shared, particular grief over places morphing into unfamiliar versions of themselves.

Read at InsideHook