This Just In

$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.

Want an Upgrade? Enter here. The upgradees "When my boyfriend asked me what I wanted for my 30th birthday, I told him to put me on a beach on Tybee Island, Ga. But in planning the trip, I fell in love with the architecture and history of Charleston, S.C. Now we're heading to both." —Nicole Frankhouser, Pittsburgh, Pa. Using our powers for the good of the people Nicole Frankhouser might work at Del Monte Foods, but her passion is selling real estate on the side. "I love looking at architecture," she explains. "I've always been intrigued by houses that differ from the ones where I live." For Nicole's first visit to Charleston, we arranged a special welcome for her and her boyfriend, Lee Morris, at Wentworth Mansion hotel. The owners, native Charlestonian Linn Lesesne and her husband, Rick Windman, led the couple through the 1886 building before heading to the rooftop for champagne and hors d'oeuvres. "We had an amazing view!" says Nicole. "Linn even pointed out the house where she grew up. She and Rick made us feel entirely welcome." And that's when Charleston worked its magic: "I looked at Lee, then across the city, and thought to myself, This is what I work so hard for, a moment like this." The next morning, much to Nicole's delight, she and Lee had a private tour of the Nathaniel Russell House, a historic townhouse and museum, before it opened to the public. "It made me fall in love with Charleston even more. I'm already planning a trip back!" Many thanks to... Wentworth Mansion hotel (wentworthmansion.com) and the Historic Charleston Foundation, which runs the Nathaniel Russell House (historiccharleston.org).