Eat Like a Local: Boston

For more travel news, updated daily, check our blog, This Just In. Ski central The Taos Ski Valley in New Mexico debuts a new double-black-diamond run and an area for beginner snowboarders this winter. skitaos.org. Designing women A new tour from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, "Women of Influence," focuses on the females who helped build the city. architecture.org, $10. Chocolate fix The annual decadent event known as the Chocolate Show returns to NYC this month at Pier 94, with demos by top pastry chefs and a chocolate fashion show. chocolateshow.com, $28. High tea in Kyoto Iyemon Salon, a new tea lounge in Kyoto, pairs classic brews with such tea-infused dishes as green-tea pork. iyemonsalon.jp. Islamic fine art The I.M. Pei–designed Museum of Islamic Art opens in Doha, Qatar, next month. mia.org.qa. Shipshape After an almost two-year refurbishment, the floating Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is back in Manhattan. intrepidmuseum.org, $19.50. In-air Internet American Airlines is providing Wi-Fi on flights between New York and Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for a fee of $13 per passenger. Easier check-in Passengers now need to check in just once for round-trip flights on Continental. The airline will e-mail your return boarding pass to you or fax it to your hotel for free. Golf rewards Marriott guests can now earn or redeem reward points for rounds of golf at 20 golf clubs affiliated with the hotel chain. Vegas on Virgin Virgin America has begun daily nonstop flights between New York and Las Vegas. Cushier cruises EasyCruise's newest ship has amenities like a salon, a sauna, hot tubs, and an Internet room. Greece itineraries also now include Crete and Rhodes. Vietnam rentals Budget has become the first U.S. rental-car brand to expand to Vietnam. Bookings can be made at budget.com.vn. Arty hotel InterContinental's new Chicago hotel near O'Hare airport features an art gallery with its own curator and rotating exhibits of Chicago artists.

$8 Statues Part of the ceiling of Wawel Castle was once adorned with nearly 200 carved wooden heads. At Krakuska Sztuka Ludowa, you can buy mini replicas to watch over your own throne. ul. Szewska 9, 011-48/12-430-21-04. $15 Cheese plate Artisans in the town of Boleslawiec use sponge stamps to decorate pottery. This country maid conceals cheese slices under her skirt. Mila, ul. Slawkowska 14, 011-48/12-422-40-82, mila.zaprasza.net. $13 Vodka Poles pride themselves on their fruit liquors. Some of these homemade spirits are bootleg, but the plum vodka sold at Krakowski Kredens is legit—and delicious. ul. Grodzka 7, 011-48/12-423-81-59. $13 Earrings Roosters often appear in Polish folk art. At Maruna, designer Agnieszka Osikowicz incorporates the classic motif into her playful Plexiglas jewelry. ul. Miodowa 2, maruna.pl. $15 Slippers High in the Tatra Mountains, residents make slippers, blankets, and clothing from thick felt and wool to keep warm during the bitter winters. Handel, Main Market Square, 011-48/12-422-33-53. $18 Shirt Cartoonist Andrzej Mleczko has skewered Polish culture and politics for decades. His namesake shop in the Old Town carries items printed with his caricatures. ul. sw. Jana 14, 011-48/12-421-71-04. $15 Paperweight Amber from the coast can set you back a few hundred dollars. The faux amber at Galeria Osobliwosci Este looks a lot like the real thing. ul. Slawkowska 16, 011-48/12-429-19-84.

On the Bolderhof organic farm in northern Switzerland, near the medieval town of Stein am Rhein, farmer Heinz Morgenegg's cows do more than just make milk—they're also in the hospitality business. Last winter, after his wife returned from a trip raving about a camel ride she'd taken, Morgenegg began to reconsider his heifers' day jobs. "I said to my wife, 'Why don't we ride our cows?'" he recalls. "Then I sat on one cow, and she didn't run away. She just stood there and ate. So I sat on the others, and they all liked it!" Within six months, he'd trained a handful of his cows—Colina, Tesa, Paloma, and Diana—to take people on a four-hour tour of his Swiss pastoral spread. The one-of-a-kind ride starts with some basics: You brush your cow and then walk it around the farm; it's a first date of sorts, so human and beast can bond. After you climb aboard and settle in, the cow ambles along a route flecked with meadows, farmland, and forest. And beginners needn't fret: Cows won't buck or canter. Instead, they saunter as if they were soaking up the scenery—or scoping out their next snack. Fortunately, the outing includes a picnic stop. Riders lunch on smoked sausages and Swiss cheese, while their bovine guides munch on grass. "The whole experience was pretty funny, including the fact that I had to figure out how to balance on a rocking cow!" says recent rider Ute Geprägs. 011-41/52-742-4048, bolderhof.ch, $138.

One of the best experiences I had on a recent trip through the Middle East was one that set me back the least. My boyfriend, Adam, and I spent our first night in the ancient (and breathtaking) red-rock city of Petra, Jordan, in a traditional hotel. After we'd slept off the jet lag—and gotten engaged atop one of Petra's highest peaks—we decided to spend a night at the Ammarin Bedouin Camp, a quick drive away through the desert. As we pulled up to the bare-bones campground, which was little more than the low table you see pictured and a few rows of traditional bedouin tents, we found our unsuspecting welcomer, Mohammad, sound asleep on the cushions in the photo. Yet, without missing a beat, he sprang up from his nap, poured us hot tea, and began gleefully teaching us Arabic words out of my phrase book. We whiled away the morning with Miriam, a lively eyed shepherdess from the next village over, and spent the afternoon riding camels (my advice: Start with a half-day trek, or you'll walk bowlegged for a while) and lamenting the high price of wives in the region with our guide, Faisal. In fact, while I was off in hot pursuit of a baby camel I wanted to photograph, the men gathered around to congratulate Adam—and wasted no time asking how much he'd paid for me. Later that evening, we were joined by two dozen Jordanian police officers on a retreat, a gaggle of French tourists, and a group of American dads, former grad school roommates now touring the world with their families. We took turns trading stories, tips, and future travel plans: Alex, one of their sons, was off the next day to study abroad in Turkey. I hope he enjoys his stay just as much as we enjoyed our time around the campfire, which helped us get to know our hosts and fellow guests in a way we never would have otherwise. But that's often the case when you, literally, take the road less traveled.