Save the Date

The backpacker set is nesting in large numbers on the southern coast of Turkey. Amid beautiful beaches and ancient Lycian ruins, the port town of Olympos has several tree-house hostels that find hard-partying travelers lurching up ladders to get to bed. "It's a little bit Robinson Crusoe, a little bit Gilligan's Island," explains 21-year-old Australian Zoe McDonald. The rickety pine affairs, with crooked walls and asymmetrical stairs, cost under $20 a night, including breakfast and dinner. Even in the height of summer there's usually plenty of room for impromptu arrivals. Anyone with designs on a particular hostel, however, should reserve in advance online. Kadir's is the most social, with a raucous nightly bonfire at an open-air bar. Forty shacks, some sleeping as many as 10 guests, are built around trees, and can be up to 40 feet off the ground. (Kadir's also has on-ground cabins and bungalows with bathrooms.) Staff and former visitors have given the tree houses names, such as the Betty Ford Center. With space for 450, Turkmen Tree Houses takes Kadir's overflow. It uses the term "tree house" liberally: The buildings are aboveground next to tall pines or on large trunks--they don't wrap around them. Each sleeps two to six in actual beds, not just on mattresses on the floor. Saban Pension has 12 tree houses with room for only 100--which means a shorter buffet line, if nothing else. It's by far the most mellow: Most guests spend their days playing cards under lean-tos or on the nearby beach. The 25 tree houses at Bayram's, which tower over orange groves, look like log cabins on stilts. A resident DJ spins Turkish rock while guests take the on-site Blotto Bar's name very literally. --Rich Beattie   Kadir's Tree Houses 011-90/242-892-1250, kadirstreehouses.com, from $11   Turkmen Tree Houses 011-90/242-892-1249, olymposturkmentreehouses.com, from $16   Saban Pension 011-90/242-892-1265, sabanpansion.com, from $15   Bayram's 011-90/242-892-1243, bayrams.com, from $15

Love foreign supermarkets as much as we do? Now you can prove it. Send your supermarket souvenir photo and caption to Letters@BudgetTravel.com with the subject line "Supermarket Souvenir," and we'll consider your photo for our slide show. Each spring, Cambodian farmers hold their breath as trays of food are set before a pair of oxen. The specific dishes the beasts choose to eat predict the bounty of the next harvest. The maker of this jerky has given the bovine an even greater ability—the power to fly. —Naomi Lindt In Mexico, cleaning your clothes is a sultry affair thanks to Tango soap ($2). A dancer seduces you with her bare shoulders (is her bra in the dryer?), while the product promises to "express passion." Added bonus: clean undies. —Andrea Sachs In Italy, cool design pops up just about everywhere, even on packages of $1 snack food. Each bag of Virtual chips features a lone corn chip, lit as if it were on display in the Uffizi Gallery. At a mere 154 calories per bag, it also leaves you feeling virtually no guilt. —Sean O'Neill There really is something in the bottled water sold in the tiny Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain. Not only is Al Kamel's cardamom water ($1) used as a flavoring for milk and coffee, but its label claims that if you drink the water three times a day it will function as a "digestive inducer, sexual stimulator, tranquilizer, and tonic for the heart." —Summar Ghias In Colombia, the health benefits of soy can't be oversold. Not only do packets of Leche de Soya, a powdered soy milk ($2), sport a spokesman who looks a bit like Richard Simmons, but the instructions include illustrations of sports that are ideal for soy-milk drinkers—bodybuilding, rollerblading, desk jockeying.... —Liz Ozaist These Gluco-Max tea biscuits look like they should be from Japan, but they're actually from Uganda. Munch on enough of them and you might end up sumo-size, too. (18¢) --Laura MacNeil Here's one way to stand out in a market flooded with bottled water: Replace the streams and mountains usually found on labels with a snarky sense of humor. Another Bloody Water is about $1.75 in Australian groceries. --Celeste Moure Swing Ernie is a curvaceous, heart-stamped sponge that seems to be romantically involved with a hedgehog. In commercials, the two dance and roll around on a countertop to Paul Anka's "Put Your Head On My Shoulder." Why use sex to sell a sponge? "It's very French," laughs Spontex's marketing manager. Sold for $4 or so across France. --Ellise Pierce Bottled in St. Kitts, the honey-based (and nonalcoholic) Giant Malt is sold at island supermarkets for around a dollar. But what's with the buff bod on the label? "Giant Malt makes you strong," claims Mark Wilkin, Carib Brewery's managing director. --Amy Chen This makes twist-off caps look traditional: Iron Wine sells malbec cabernet and chenin blanc in aluminum cans. The 12-ounce cans ("When a bottle is too much but a glass is too little!" says ironwine.com) are available at upscale shops and bars in Argentina for $2 to $6. --Celeste Moure There's nothing minor about a candy bar that combines the rich cocoa goodness of Swiss chocolate with chopped, roasted hazelnuts. It comes in various shapes and sizes--including this 46-gram bar made solely for rest stops and kiosks ($1.20). Yes, in Switzerland, even the snacks sold at gas stations are fancy. --Mike Iveson In Greece, people tend to eat dinner at 10 p.m. or later, which explains the large number of light mezes (small plates) on most taverna menus. Thessaloníki-based Zanae has been canning traditional appetizers--such as grape leaves stuffed with rice, and giant butter beans or meatballs in tomato sauce--for nearly 70 years ($2). --Laurie Kuntz Guidebooks say that in Portugal, food without wine is a snack, not a meal. But carrying a bottle for lunch isn't always practical. The solution: a single-serving box of white or red wine from the Estremadura region in western Portugal, available for 80 cents each. --Tom Berger When the competition sports names like Rockstar and Monster, why link your energy drink with unwanted e-mail and a potted-meat product? Because that's living on the edge. Spam Energy Drink, $1, throughout Belgium, Finland, and the Netherlands. --Mike Iveson Caviar for breakfast? It sounds like something out of a Jackie Collins novel, but there it was at the hotel buffet in Stockholm: creamed cod roe cut with potato flakes and tomato paste. Toothpaste-size tubes are sold at supermarkets for $1.40. Evidently, it's a popular after-school snack (on bread) in Sweden. Somehow we don't think Skippy has much to worry about. --Erik Torkells In Myanmar, née Burma, people love tea so much they eat it--pickled, no less. Ah Yee Taung (which means "big aunt basket") steams and ferments green tea leaves, then pairs them with roasted sesame seeds and fried beans. "Pungent" is the kindest way to describe the concoction, which can be bought throughout the country ($5). --Laura MacNeil It's only a .78-ounce bag of crispy puffed kernels, but if the peppy hiker on the package is any indication, Quinua Pop is all the fuel you'll need to trek across the Andes. Called the mother grain by the Inca, quinoa is heavy on protein, iron and vitamin B. Four-packs of the breakfast cereal are sold for 75 cents at Metro and other grocery stores in Peru. --Laura MacNeil Despite the packaging, Leverpostei is actually not a puree of a small blond boy. Rather, it's a Norwegian pork liver pate best paired with salty crackers. It's sold in seven-ounce tins--some are decorated with girls, but contain the same tasty contents--for $1.70. --Litty Mathew With these animal crackers, there's no question who sits atop the food chain: kids. Wildlife Cookie Company makes foxes, bears, and mountain lions (available at Yosemite and other national parks, $1.75), while Oahu-based Diamond Bakery opts for bite-sized Hawaiian sea creatures such as humpback whales, octopi, and dolphins ($1). --Brad Tuttle Made with Scotch bonnet peppers, a Caribbean favorite, Hell Sauce, is named for the Cayman town of Hell. (According to the label, nearby rocks resemble "the smouldering remains of a Hell Fire.") The sauce is a kick, even if Hell is a tourist trap, just as one always suspected. It costs $4 for a five-ounce bottle at Foster's Food Fair on Grand Cayman Island. New Zealand has four million residents, and about as many dairy cows. So it's small wonder that milk shows up everywhere, including the candy aisle. Heards Milk Chews ($2 for a seven-ounce bag at Foodtowns across the country) taste like milkshake-flavored Tootsie Rolls. Sweet. --Paul Brady Slow-cooked, marinated quail eggs are considered fertility boosters in Taiwan, where they're sold as pang ti neng (in Taiwanese) or xiang tie dan (in Mandarin). Both translate as fragrant iron eggs--not that you can smell a thing through the serious vacuum packing. (Come to think of it, that's just fine.) They cost $6.50 at supermarkets and convenience stores. --Christine Y. Chen Kranky and Crunky aren't just descriptions of hip-hop star Lil Jon after a long night. In Mexico, Kranky is a brand of chocolate-covered cornflakes; and in Japan, Crunky is a Nestle Crunch-like bar. Each brings attitude adjustment for under $1. A mix of Indian spices and German sausage, Curry-Wurst is popular with munich clubgoers looking to line--and test?--their stomachs. A sliced pork sausage is doused in tomato sauce; toothpicks and a curry packet are tucked underneath. Plke holes in the lid, microwave, and sprinkle on the spice. It's sold refrigerated in grocery stores, including the MiniMal chain ($1.80).--Marilyn Holstein With Toreras (female bullfighters), cocktail onion company Kimbo combines two Spanish signatures--bullfighting and tapas--in one neat tin. On the inside, toothpicks skewer stacks of olives, pearl onions, and hot peppers. On the outside, saucy chicas in matador pants play coyly with spears. Olé! Available across Spain at El Corte Inglés Carrefour, and Eroski supermarkets. 1.50 (about $2). --Lisa Abend

1. The stretch of Queen Street West between Trinity--Bellwoods Park and Dufferin Street is formally known as West Queen West, but the informal--and easier--name is the Art and Design District. Forty-one galleries call the area home. Some are bigger than others: At the Fly Gallery, two artists/curators devote the bay window of their apartment to works by local artists. 1172 Queen St. West, 416/539-8577. 2. Don't mind the slightly unkempt exterior at Addis Ababa, a 13-year-old Ethiopian restaurant. Doro wat (chicken in berberé sauce) and gommen wat (collard greens with ginger and garlic) are served atop injera, a spongy flat bread that does double duty as a utensil. Stick around for the coffee. Made from strong beans, roasted daily in the kitchen, it cuts nicely through the bread, which expands fast in your belly. The coffee's aroma is complemented by a small stick of pungent frankincense left to burn on a dish at the table ($5). 1184 Queen St. West, 416/538-0059, dinner for two $25. 3. Three years ago, Christina Zeidler, with the help of her architect father, Eberhard, bought The Gladstone Hotel--a grand brick and stone Victorian that's Toronto's oldest continually operating hotel--and they've been getting local artists to do the decorating. By next month, 37 of the 51 rooms will be completed. Poetry readings and drawing classes take place regularly on the ground floor; and the Melody Bar hosts karaoke Thursday through Saturday nights. 1214 Queen St. West, 416/531-4635, gladstonehotel.com, from $114. 4. Built in the 1880s and '90s, the Victorian houses lining Beaconsfield Avenue between Queen Street West and Argyle Street are relics from WQW's wealthier days, and the city has designated many as heritage properties. Number 38 is the three-room Beaconsfield B&B, owned by an artist and an actor, Bernie and Katya McLoughlin. Breakfast may include berries fresh from the garden. 38 Beaconsfield Ave., 416/535-3338, bbcanada.com/beaconsfield, from $72. 5. Mildred Pierce Restaurant, named for the 1945 film starring Joan Crawford, is a classic itself. The French-Indian fusion restaurant has been a neighborhood fixture for 15 years. Floor-to-ceiling murals of a Renaissance feast are a fitting accompaniment to a Sunday brunch of "green eggs and ham" (scrambled eggs with spinach, served with a thick slice of ham and a buttermilk biscuit). 99 Sudbury St., 416/588-5695, green eggs and ham $8. 6. The Beaconsfield isn't on Beaconsfield Avenue, despite the name. A bistro in what was once a bank, it has a vibe both modern and glam. Hunker down on a maroon banquette and order a pint of one of the nine beers on tap ($5), and a burger with aged cheddar and shoestring fries ($10). 1154 Queen St. West, 416/516-2550. 7. The migration continues under the railway tracks that cross Queen Street West to another frontier neighborhood, Parkdale. Last year, Jamie Cheveldeyoff, an art director for music videos, turned what was once a methadone clinic into a decor boutique, Koma Designs, which sells shabby-chic furniture gathered from vintage shops and estate sales. 1239 Queen St. West, 416/532-5662. 8. Parkdale's Ground Level Café is run by a government-funded program that provides jobs to homeless and disadvantaged youth. At Saturday brunch, nothing on the menu--blueberry pancakes, omelets--costs more than $6. 1340 Queen St. West, 416/531-5346.

Tel Avivians are eternal optimists. Give us the sun, a good cup of coffee, and the company of friends, and we're happy. Give us a plate of food, and we're transcendent. Maybe it's all the caffeine. Café culture is an integral part of life here, and the city is brimming with local chains, such as Espresso Bar. The most popular order is a café hafuch ("upside-down coffee"), another name for cappuccino. Locals linger for hours, talking to friends at their table or on the other end of the cell phone--often both at the same time. At Espresso Bar's newest branch on Dizengoff Street, one of the city's main thoroughfares, you'll be hard-pressed to find a free table on Fridays, especially between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., peak time to schmooze before Shabbat dinner. Open 24 hours, Brasserie M&R is popular for late-night cocktails. Its best bargain, however, is Friday or Saturday brunch, when $10-$13 gets you a cocktail; a basket of hot-from-the-oven rolls and muffins; your favorite coffee drink; and eggs Benedict, gravlax blini, pancakes, or porridge. There are countless hummus joints where the service is fast, the food is cheap, and the process of eating is part of the fun. Ali Karavan, also known as Abu Hassan, is a classic hole-in-the-wall three miles down the coast in Jaffa, technically part of Tel Aviv. The entire menu consists of masabacha (chickpeas in warm hummus-tahini sauce), labaneh (a soft cheese made out of yogurt), and hummus with or without ful (slow-cooked fava beans). Each item costs $2.50, and all orders come with pita bread, raw onions, and a piquant lemon-garlic sauce on the side. To eat, tear off a piece of pita and wipe up hummus from the outside in; alternate with bites of onion, and never use a fork. Ali Karavan is open every day except Saturday (Shabbat), from 8 a.m. until the day's hummus runs out, usually mid-afternoon. The deck at Manta Ray has a prime view of the Mediterranean coastline and the minarets in Jaffa. The food is equally awesome. Grilled fillet of drum fish--a type of Mediterranean fish similar to bass--is accompanied by mango chutney, Dijon mustard, and pesto ($19). You could make a whole meal of Manta Ray's small plates; they vary by season, and may include bulgur; chopped mango; fresh spinach and shrimp; or figs baked with feta. They're usually about $3 each. Eight years ago, chef Mika Sharon, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City, opened the trendy restaurant Mika. Her cooking is a fusion of French, Italian, and Asian. Take Bouillabaisse Mika--a seasonal lemongrass-and-ginger-infused soup of calamari, blue crab, shrimp, and fresh-caught Mediterranean fish such as grouper, sea bream, or red snapper ($20). "Business lunches" are always a better deal than ordering à la carte--some are available as late as 6 p.m., and you don't need a briefcase to qualify. At Mika, the business lunch includes a choice of first course, second course, and soda for $18. Mika's secondary draw is its location, a few blocks from Rothschild Boulevard, which has some fine examples of 1930s Bauhaus architecture. Fusion, schmusion--on weekends, Tel Avivians miss their mothers. At Batia, locals get their fix of Ashkenazi comfort food, one of the many ethnic cuisines in and around the city. Batia excels at Ashkenazi signatures like creamy chopped liver; chicken soup with kneidalach (matzo balls) or kreplach (Jewish ravioli); sweet-and-sour stuffed cabbage; and Polish-style, slightly sweet gefilte fish (each dish is around $3). Crispy schnitzel--deep-fried, breaded chicken cutlets--are every Israeli child's idea of paradise ($10). On Friday and Saturday, the restaurant also serves cholent, a traditional, slow-cooked, bean-and-barley dish with meat and potatoes that sticks to your ribs from the beginning of Shabbat until Sunday. Prices range from $5 to $10.50, depending on whether you want it plain, with extra meat, or with kishke--you don't want to know what that is, just eat it, it's good. For another example of comfort food, Gueta, a family restaurant in Jaffa, has consistently delicious regional cooking from Libya. Start with an assortment of dishes like cherchi (a spicy condiment of pureed pumpkin), pickled vegetables, preserved lemons, olives, and filfelchuma (garlic-hot pepper sauce), which cost $1.30 per person for a combination of three to four plates. Gueta is helmed by Leah Gueta, the matriarch, who makes couscous daily. Her couscous complet ($10) comes with three different sauces that have simmered for hours over a low flame: tibeha bil'salk (spinach, white beans, and beef); tibeha bil camun (kidney beans and beef in cumin-spiced tomato sauce); and brudu (vegetable soup). In the last decade, sushi restaurants have sprouted up like shiitake mushrooms. At stylish Onami, chef Aya Imatani serves the traditional array of gourmet sushi, but the real treats are her authentic Japanese classics like goma doufu, a traditional sesame tofu served cold with spicy miso sauce ($3.50); and lousujyu yakiniku, tender beef stir-fried with fresh mushrooms, onions, and barbecue sauce ($11). When there's something to celebrate, Tel Avivians choose Raphael, a French-Mediterranean restaurant overlooking the water. Seasonal specialties include polenta with parmigiano-reggiano and caviar ($10.75), or an appetizer of warm and cold foie gras with white leeks and sherry-vinegar caramel ($14.50). The sea bream entrée is roasted with tomatoes and pickled lemon ($19). Finally, the Valrhona chocolate with praline cream and cocoa sorbet rounds out a meal worth celebrating in its own right ($10). Espresso Bar 166 Dizengoff St., 011-972/3-527-0077 Brasserie M&R 70 Ibn Gvirol St., 011-972/3-696-7111 Ali Karavan 1 Ha'dolfin St., Jaffa, no phone Manta Ray Alma Beach near the Etzel Museum, 011-972/3-517-4774 Mika 27 Montefiore St., 011-972/3-528-3255 Batia 197 Dizengoff St., 011-972/3-522-1335 Gueta 6 Shderot Yurushalayim, Jaffa, 011-972/3-681-3993 Onami 18 Ha'arba'a St., 011-972/3-562-1172 Raphael 87 Hayarkon St., 011-972/3-522-6464