'Tombstone tourists,' world-class cocktails and a street-food hub

10.28.23

In our latest roundup of travel news: great cities for world-class cocktails, Japanese street food and Michelin-starred fine dining, plus father-son and grandmother-granddaughter aviation teams taking to the skies.

And with Halloween on the horizon, find out why "tombstone tourists" find cemeteries so fascinating.

By Maureen O'Hare

🍸 Bars, street food and fine dining

Fukuoka, Japan (Mny-Jhee/iStock Editorial/Getty Images)

Where do you go to find the world's best bar? For the past two years in a row, it's been Barcelona. Intimate cocktail joint Sips, a 33-seat venue that opened during the Covid pandemic, scooped the prestigious 2023 award this month, after speakeasy Paradiso took last year's crown.

And for Asian street food, one Japanese city has more open-air food stalls than the rest of the country combined. Here's how Fukuoka came to rule Japan's yatai (food cart) scene.

Finally, Michelin-starred dining has arrived in Georgia's capital city, with five Atlanta restaurants being awarded one Michelin star on October 24. The prestigious French travel guide praised the city's "dynamic culinary landscape" and "diverse offerings."

🛫 A family affair

A grandmother and granddaughter flight attendant duo recently hit the skies on a Southwest Airlines flight over California. Hannah Heck, 24, was inspired by her jetsetting grandma to begin an aviation career. So when the two ended up working for the same airline, Cynthia Heck, 72, worked behind the scenes to make sure she was on Hannah's first flight.

Ruben Flowers and his son Ruben share more than just a name: Little Ruben grew up wanting to be just like his pilot dad, and a 1994 photo shows the toddler son gazing up with admiration in the airplane flight deck as his uniformed father prepared to fly a plane. Almost 30 years later, the pair recreated the photo — but this time young Ruben, 30, is in uniform too, about to follow in his father's footsteps and begin flying as a First Officer, also for Southwest Airlines.

🧳 Travel tech making journeys smoother

Technological innovations are making travel simpler and simpler. Take the luggage tracking device, a must-have item for the savvy traveler. When athlete Gray Barnett's $12,000 bike went missing between France and South Carolina, he and his dad tracked it to Brussels Airport — where a helpful airport staff member was able to save the day.

Live translation is also constantly improving. And in Japan, always a tech front-runner, Tokyo metro has introduced a futuristic screen that can instantly translate conversations into 12 languages. Watch how it works here.

Finally, Google Flights has a new feature to help travelers save money and reveals the most searched winter holiday spots. And when the time comes to turn your vacation clips into mini masterpieces, our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have this roundup of the best video editing apps for mobile in 2023.

🐧 See an emperor penguin hatch

This emperor penguin chick is the first to hatch at SeaWorld San Diego in over 10 years. Staff say she's now thriving on a diet of fish and "fish milkshakes."

👀 In case you missed it

This haunting picture of a horseshoe crab won Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023.

But how does it compare to the animal antics in the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards?

This couple quit their jobs and sold everything to drive around the world with their two children.

Their mission is to protect the environment.

On India's Coromandel Coast, there's a forgotten Danish outpost.

Tranquebar was the European nation's foothold in India from 1620 to 1845.

This island was once a barren moonscape lorded over by rats.

Now the newly restored Redonda is a Caribbean wildlife haven.