The immediate surroundings of our Milky Way galaxy are home to a number of dwarf galaxies, whose variety in shape, size, spatial location and velocity tells us that these Galactic satellites all have different tales to tell. While some look round, pristine and undisturbed, others have disturbed morphologies or show gradients in their metallicity, while yet others have unusual kinematic features or clearly show their dissolution into a stellar stream. Very few of them contain significant levels of gas, also prompting the question of what mechanism is responsible for stripping out their gas content. This talk will explore the eclectic mix of Milky Way dwarf galaxies and what their properties can reveal to us about their different stories, and also what they can collectively tell us of our own Galaxy. I will also discuss how looking at the Galactic vicinity is aiding us, via this population of Galactic satellites, in the increasingly popular area of near-field cosmology.