A renovated Wendy’s that now serves salmon and broccolini says a lot about the state of restaurants along America’s highways.

Treehouse Point consists of seven unique rentable perches in Issaquah, Wash., about 30 minutes east of Seattle. Built by Pete Nelson, former host of “Treehouse Masters” on Animal Planet, and his crew, they are priced at $325 to $625 a night, with usually a two-night minimum. Breakfast is included.

Located in San Diego County’s backyard, the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest in California. Desert camping can be a great introduction for first-time campers, said Samantha Young, the education manager at the Anza-Borrego Foundation, since it’s easy to find a flat surface to pitch a tent and there aren’t constant flies or mosquitoes. And desert season — roughly November to April — is a great time for visitors to avoid extreme heat during the day and catch potential wildflower blooms.

You can find plenty of Old West flair in this Arizona city’s stores and museums like the Smithsonian affiliated Western Spirit and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, a National Historic Landmark and UNESCO World Heritage Site, and plenty of luxury in the area’s stylish accommodations, such as its Four Seasons and Mountain Shadows resorts with all of their amenities and restaurants.

Music critic finally gets a chance to visit the city deservedly known as both “The Home of the Blues” and “The Birthplace of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” taking in sights such as Graceland, Sun Studio, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Blues Hall of Fame Museum, the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

Visits to the National Zoo between Sept. 26 and Nov. 9 — roughly the start of the facility’s “cele-bear-ation,” to the bears’ departure day — increased 179% over those of the same period in 2022, said Ellie Tahmaseb, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. “Although I can’t say definitively this was due to the giant pandas, it’s hard to look at the data and come to any other conclusions,” she said. Now animal lovers are racing to Atlanta to see the only giant pandas left in the U.S. before they too return to China sometime in late 2024.

The East Brother Light Station Bed & Breakfast, located on an island near the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, offers 5 bedrooms that are rentable by the night. Or, if you’re so inclined to splurge, you can rent the entire inn for a 10 to 12 person “house party.” The B&B is a nonprofit, with proceeds paying for the maintenance of the light station, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Here’s a quick blueprint of the best places to stay, dine and explore the outdoors at the quiet seaside getaway, which is wedged into North Carolina’s southernmost corner between Wilmington to the north and the South Carolina state line.

Gloria Johnson was a small child when her father — Army Master Sgt. Roy E. Barrow — went off to war and never returned. Until now.

Call it agrotourism, people visiting farms as tourists, or even agritainment, but animal cuddling stations and flower fields have given farmers another avenue for revenue and have also provided a link between the public and the farm community, though these experiences haven’t come without their share of controversy or liability.