If you live in any kind of urban environment, scooters are a part of your daily landscape. From Rome to South Beach, city dwellers use them as an easy, convenient mode of transportation. The benefits of scooter ownership are numerous, from great gas mileage (most scooters get upwards of 60 miles to the gallon) to easy parking. Plus, they look cute, and if you buy the right model, they go fast, too.

Aprilia’s line of Scarabeos are known far and wide as some of the highest quality machines out there. The Scarabeo 500 is the biggest of the large-wheeled scooters, which means it’s as stable as it is sleek. The modern, sporty look of the Scarabeo isn’t just a put on, either, it has a seriously powerful engine. The 500cc engine is as fast as many motorcycles, only easier to drive and more comfortable.

Aprilia says that their main goal in the design of the Scarabeo 500 was to “achieve maximum comfort with maximum riding satisfaction. The result is a scooter with big-bike weight distribution, capable of amazing agility and handling without compromising the high speed stability for which all Aprilia scooters are famous. Scarabeo is a real delight to ride, not only because it is an inimitable style icon, but also because the active control typical of all Aprilias turns the Scarabeo into a truly dynamic motorcycle with the ability to thrill its rider even on the daily commute between home and work.”

Who can resist this amazing combination of good looks and power? With a price tag of under $7k, who wants to?

Have you ever wanted to trek across the Egyptian desert by Jeep or go dog sledding in the Arctic? Maybe you prefer to walk across Tanzania or climb to the top of Mt. Everest? What ever your extreme adventure vacation dream is, Abercrombie & Kent can make it happen for you.

A luxury travel provider, Abercrombie & Kent also offers dreamlike itineraries for the wealthy adventure traveler. A&K goes places that usually only scientists and anthropologists go and takes you with them. For a pretty price, of course, this level of access doesn’t come cheap. A week long adventure in Antarctica, for example, starts at around $52,000.

What do you get for that kind of money? The experience of a lifetime with few frills. While most of Abercrombie & Kent’s tours take you from one five-star hotel to the next, their extreme adventure tours take you from basecamp to basecamp, where you will eat open-fire cooked food in common areas and sleep in tents.

Adventures are ranked by difficulty on a scale of 1-4. 1 being for the average healthy Joe or Jane and 4 being for only the heartiest millionaires. The tours are led by prominent expeditionists with years of experience. If you dreamed of being Indiana Jones but somehow ended up a little more like Bill Gates, this is your chance to see what life is like in the extreme.

Moxon Huddersfield is one of the oldest textile houses in England. When I say old, I don’t mean the American idea of old, I mean pre-colonial. The house was established in 1556, and has been producing the highest quality, most expensive textiles ever since. The cloth produced by Moxon is extraordinary in a number of ways. They have continued to use time-tested methods of handcrafting for the past several centuries. While it takes a mass production facility only a few hours to produce cloth, the Moxon method takes 8 days!

And it isn’t just the method that is unique. The Moxon Altai Cashmere that their famous socks are made of comes only from Altai goats, who live in the mountains of Mongolia. These rare animals have softer fur than other goats because they live at such high altitudes, and their bodies need enormous amounts of fat to stay protected from the elements. This results in a cashmere that has one of the highest micron counts in the cashmere family, which is a scientific way of saying that it is really really soft.

So, then, what’s the price of a pair of socks woven from the fur of extremely rare goats and made with centuries-old techniques? Why, a mere $400! Dubbed the most expensive socks in the world by Wikipedia, the socks themselves are so rare that I can’t even find a picture of them. But unlike other woolen socks, these will not shrink after washing, and they won’t get holes, either. They will, however begin shedding after about a dozen washes. Perhaps if you collect each strand that they shed you could weave a $100 pair of socks? It’s just an idea.

Gardening may seem like dirty business, but you can do it in style with Hermes’ Quadrille Jardin gardening set. Hermes, the purveyor of the coveted Birkin bag, is known for making the most luxurious leather goods, scarves, and equestrian accessories. Now, lucky for all of us, they have branched out into the garden in a beautiful way.

The set includes a spade, trowel, weeding fork, and signature Hermes textile bag. These are just the right tools to get your blooms a-blossoming. Some might say that $345 for a three-piece gardening set is exorbitant, but they haven’t taken into consideration the handcrafted quality of these Hermes tools. The stainless steel tools are topped with cherry wood handles, which are comfortable to hold and meant to stand the test of time. As usual, Hermes has managed to strike exactly the right balance between practicality and beauty.

Even the most fastidious among us won’t be scared to get their hands dirty with these. So give the gardener a day off, and spend a day in the sun without sacrificing style. Who says pulling up weeds isn’t chic? Available from Hermes.

10 years ago Volkswagen introduced America to the $85,000 Phaeton luxury car which doomsayers said buyers would never go for a luxury car made by the auto maker of the Beetle, and well, they were right.

But that was a decade a go and this is now, and Volkswagen is giving it another go with a recently unveiled Phaeton.

Named for the son of the Greek god Helios, this luxury car will be back on US soil in a matter of months.

It won’t be the same car. Volkswagen freshened the 2011 — which went into into European showrooms showrooms in June and goes on sale in China next month — with a new front and rear, a better interior and wider selection of engines. But the U.S. won’t get the Phaeton again until the next-generation model is ready.

There is no word as of yet when that release date will be, sadly.  Sorry we did you wrong 10 years back, Volksie.