Pictured Rocks in Michigan is a worthy coastal alternative to Acadia National Park

If you're looking for the striking shoreline scenery of Acadia National Park in Maine without the crowds, consider Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It's a wild, rocky coastline surrounded by lush woodland and striking cliffs — but on Lake Superior, not the ocean. The 42-mile shoreline of Pictured Rocks is a stunning destination for those looking for hiking, camping and water recreation, and in 2022, this national lakeshore received about a quarter as many visitors as Acadia. The namesake Pictured Rocks, sandstone cliffs covered in vibrant swaths of color from mineral deposits, rise up to 200 feet from the water and can be explored via boat tour, kayak or hiking trail.

New York Times

Expedia Group has gone live with its new rewards program, One Key. It unifies rewards for its core travel brands Expedia and Hotels.com — plus Vrbo, which had no loyalty program. Members will earn 2% in "OneKeyCash" for every dollar spent on hotels, vacation rentals, packages, car rentals and cruises, and 0.2% on airfare. The flexible rewards currency can then be used for "Pay Now" bookings and participating vacation rentals. Many travel bloggers have already panned One Key, since it spells the end of Hotels.com's "stamps" system with one free night for every 10 stayed. But One Key is poised to be easier and more flexible for the casual traveler using a mixture of websites for travel booking.

Simon Peter Groebner

Come next year, the United Kingdom will start charging visitors a nominal entry fee. The nation intends to roll out an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) requirement in 2024 that will cost £10, or about $12.90. According to the U.K. government page, the ETA is a new requirement for people who do not need a visa to come to the U.K. Having the ETA gives visitors permission to travel to the U.K., and will be electronically linked to each individual's passport. Travelers who will require an ETA include those who plan to visit for up to six months for tourism, to spend time with family or friends, to conduct business or to study.

TravelPulse

The best restaurant in the world is Central, in Lima, Peru. The dynamic tasting-menu restaurant from chef Virgilio Martinez features ingredients from Peru's very diverse landscape — potatoes sourced from the Andes mountains; sea urchin from the ocean — and notes the latitude of each dish. The pronouncement from World's 50 Best moved the restaurant world's epicenter away from Copenhagen, which had claimed the top spot for the past two years — in 2022 with Geranium, an ambitious Scandi restaurant. The year before, it was Noma, which had won No. 1 five times. The No. 2 restaurant in the world, according to World's 50 Best, is Disfrutar in Barcelona.

Bloomberg