This week on the Gadling Instagram feed, we were so inspired by Anna Brones' week of photos from Paris, France, that we decided to go back.

Actually, pulling a page from the itinerary of a backpacking college student, we'll only be stopping in Paris for a day while en route to the cities and hamlets of Italy. Expect a week full of photos that range from ruins and relics to hidden restaurants where there will be more than a few shots of pizza and wine. From the hilltop villages of Tuscany to the fabled coastline of Cinque Terre, follow the #OntheRoad Instagram feed for a peek into where our travels have managed to take us.

[Photo Credit: Kyle Ellison]

For some reason, every continent seems to have a roof.

Bolivia is known as "the roof of South America" for its high, empty and multi-colored altiplano that has an average elevation of 12,300 feet.

Mt. Kilimanjaro has been called "the roof of Africa" for its glacial, 19,340-foot summit that presides over the equatorial plains.

The Tibetan plateau, meanwhile, is such an expanse of high altitude emptiness it's not only regarded as the roof of Asia, but it's gained the lofty title as "the roof of the World."

So if South America, Africa and Asia all get a roof, can North America have one too? Moreover, if North America were to have a roof, where exactly would it be?

Basic statistics point to Mt. McKinley, the 20,320-foot pinnacle that stoically dominates the center of Alaska. Since McKinley is the highest point in the North American continent, it seems it would only make sense. As with California's Mt. Whitney, however, (which at 14,505 feet is the highest point in the continental United States), the promontory is too much of a lone pinnacle to ever be considered a proper roof (thereby throwing the Kilimanjaro title out the window as well, I suppose).

Would it be the Great Basin of Nevada, a seemingly lifeless expanse of rock and sand that hovers silently around 7,000 feet? Would it be the spine of the Colorado Rockies that somehow manage to cram 53 different mountains of 14,000 feet into an area the size of Maine? Or would it be the Yukon Territory and the St. Elias Mountain Range – places, which contain the 18 highest peaks in Canada, 12 of which are higher than anywhere found in the Lower 48?

While all could be considered as viable options (I suppose the Great Basin is a stretch), I'm going to propose an alternative, which has not yet been mentioned, but could make a strong case for keeping the title in a trophy case on its windswept, high-altitude plateau.

The strip clubs in San Felipe, Mexico, aren't open on Tuesdays.

For most travelers to Baja, this isn't overly concerning. After all, with all of the surfing, fishing, diving and fish taco eating that can easily consumer your entire day, the fact that strip clubs are closed for one day of the week shouldn't be a point of concern.

If, however, you've descended upon San Felipe after three days of camping in the desert with a reclusive, one-legged hermit (a story for a different time), and it happens to be a bachelor party, the fact that it's a Tuesday suddenly becomes an issue.

This, however, is not a tale about strip clubs or hermits. It's a tale about safety, and how the road to bad decisions can be a very gradual slope.

As I've mentioned before in the "2013 International Adventure Guide to Baja" and articles such as "I Traveled to Mexico and Came Back Alive", the only way you're going to get in trouble as a visitor to Baja is if you do something stupid like engage in drug deals in a back alley of a border town with unsavory characters in the middle of the night.

This isn't a Mexico thing, mind you; this is an everywhere thing. Whether you're in Mexico or Chicago, back alleys at 2 a.m. are potential staging areas for the next morning's headlines. When you hear a report that two tourists were stabbed or robbed, and then find out that it was in a back alley of a border town at 2 a.m., a small part of you thinks they had it coming.

Just like no one plans on an accident, however, you don't always plan on ending up in a back alley of a border town-sometimes it just happens. While you would never jump from Point A (land of good decisions) directly to Point D (land of horrendous decisions), sometimes the smaller jumps from A to B and B to C put you in striking range of Point D, the slippery slope of how you got there blurred by the casual descent.

Throw in a Mexican army general and a moonlighting prostitute, and you've created a mezcal-flavored cocktail for disaster.

If history is any indicator, the North Shore of Maui is the tinkering ground for the world's next generation of watersports. Both stand up paddling and kitesurfing can trace their roots to this fabled stretch of coastline, and new footage coming out of the Valley Isle shows some of Hawaii's best watermen testing out what could potentially be the world's next watersport.

In a weird, hybrid cross between jet skiing, race car driving and surfing, jet surfing employs a mechanically operated board that is equipped with a two-stroke engine, which can propel the board to speeds up to 35 mph. There isn't any paddling involved in the process whatsoever, and with the use of a handheld accelerator the rider can adjust their speed to cater to the speed of the wave.

While the boards, which are the design of Jet Surf, have been around for a couple of years, this is the first footage we've seen of them being tested in what has historically been the proving ground for the "next big thing" of watersports.

Granted, the $12,000 price point is out of range for most of the world's surfers, but if the trend catches on there is a good chance the prices will fall as the popularity increases.

What do you think? The future of watersports, or just another gimmick?

I once knew a man who said you've never looked freedom in the eye until you've raced through the Mexican desert at 100 mph while naked on the roof of a car.

While perhaps a little extreme, this raw sense of freedom and adventure has attracted adventure travelers to Baja since before the area even had a paved road. A trip to Baja means fishing for Dorado in a wooden panga beneath a sky that is vacant of clouds. It's winding your way on sandy back roads with three surfboards, two cases of Tecate, and one hope for the perfect wave. It's staring in wonder at whale sharks as they casually drift through bays that are cohabitated by manta rays and dolphins.

Baja is enchanting. Baja is raw. And it is unmistakably free.

One thing Baja is not, however, is dangerous, and it's this misconception that continues to keep Baja off of the mainstream adventure travel map.

Instead, we would rather highlight the fact that Baja continues to be one of the best adventure destinations on the North American continent. From surfing to scuba and fishing to sandboarding, the entire peninsula is a desert playground you could spend a lifetime exploring.

Plus, with the media-induced security scares of the past couple of years, prices in Baja continue to be far cheaper than at many adventure destinations you could find in the western hemisphere.

While entire books could be written (and have been written) on the adventure possibilities of "La Baja," here is a snippet of heart-thumping adventures to help turn your attention south.

Ever since Samoa jumped to the future by moving to the western side of the International Date Line in 2011, tourism authorities in Hawaii have been closely monitoring the situation in Samoa to see what effect it's had on the nation's tourism.

In a tactic, which was described by renowned Gadling blogger Sean McLachlan as "a shrewd business move," Samoa reasoned that by moving to the western side of the International Date Line (aka, "tomorrow"), it would attract more tourists from Australia and New Zealand who no longer had to deal with the inconvenience of adjusting their clocks nearly 23 hours backwards.

Now, nearly two years after the move by the Samoans, Hawaii tourism officials have cited the 3400% increase in tourism to Samoa as strong reasoning for making the jump to "the other side."

"At first we were critical of the move by the Samoans" admitted Hawaiian tourism official Seth Forsyth. "But in the last 18 months the Samoans have exhibited such an astronomical influx of Australian and Kiwi tourists that there's no denying they moved to the right neighborhood."

Forsyth admits, however, that a move by Hawaii to the west side of the date line wouldn't be aimed at Australian tourists, because, as he so eloquently puts it, "if you've ever tangled with an angry Samoan then you know what I'm talking about. We wouldn't want to steal their visitors."

Instead, Hawaii tourism officials are looking to draw visitors from other nations that sit just across the imaginary fence. Amongst those markets, which seem to exhibit the most potential are travelers from New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia.

With word of the move already percolating through the Hawaiian business community, Hawaiian-themed knick-knacks that will cater to the new visitors are already in the works.

According to Jason Cantor, a forward-thinking souvenir trader from Lahaina, Maui, in order to get a jump on the shifting souvenir trade his company is in serious pre-production of "Aloha" vodka flasks and plumeria-scented penis sheaths. According to Cantor, he expects these items to be "the new tiki doll."

While the move by Hawaii seems to be a foregone conclusion, geographic restructuring is similarly being considered by tourism boards across the western hemisphere.

"I've actually been in talks with officials from Nevada, Panama and even Rhode Island" admits Forsyth. "There are a few logistical issues to work out, of course, but in the end I really think it's in everyone's best interests."

[Photo Credit: Heather Ellison]

When Lindsay Scallan of Newnan, Georgia lost her camera during a 2007 scuba dive in Maui, she swallowed the hard pill of realizing that her vacation photos would be gone forever.

As it turns out, in a story recently published by Hawaii News Now, the Canon camera (which was in an underwater case) was found 6,200 miles away on the shores of Taiwan by a China Airlines employee who was taking a walk down the beach.

Despite the fact that the camera was covered in barnacles, the memory card was still intact and contained all of the photos that Scallan had snapped on her Hawaiian vacation nearly five and a half years prior.

Hoping to reunite the camera with its unknown owner, a story was published on the Hawaii News now site on March 22, which included photos from the memory card of a woman who was presumed to be the owner.

Thanks to the power of social media sites and online sharing, by March 24, Scallan had received news of her camera's re-appearance.

Not only does Scallan get her photos back, but China Airlines has offered to fly Scallan to Taiwan to be reunited with her camera in person. The only trouble, however, is that Scallan has just started a new job and doesn't know if she can get time off to fly halfway around the world to pick up her long-lost photos.

[Photo Credit: Hawaii News Now]

If you're anything like my friends, going on vacation involves drinking lots of beer.

In this particular instance, however, this current offer has more to do with the art of craft brewing as opposed to simply shouldering up to your favorite tiki bar.

If a contest involving Maui, sailing and craft brewing sounds like something you could get into, the craft-brewing site The Weekly Pint is running a promotion through April 7 where entrants put their name into a sweepstakes to attend the Maui Brewer's Festival on May 18.

Airfare is taken care of. Lodging is taken care of. Beer is taken care of. And for good measure, why not spend the day on a sailing catamaran?

We know that spring is taking a little while to get into gear here, so if you're in need of some warm tropical thoughts you can navigate over to the contest page and try your hand at paradise.

Good luck, and if you win, have a coconut porter for me!

The famous Spanish explorer Ponce de León spent parts of his travels on an unfruitful search for the fountain of youth.

Sailing from Puerto Rico to Florida in 1513 on a voyage, which would become the first documented European exploration of the American mainland, rumors of de León's search for the mythical fountain wouldn't arise until documents published after his death (which, as it turns out, wasn't due to old age, but from being wounded in the thigh by a poisoned arrow during an exploration of Southwestern Florida).

Unfortunately for de León, not only was he was searching in the wrong ocean for the secret of anti-aging, he was also searching in the wrong century. Had de León been sailing around the western Pacific in, say, 1910, he would have discovered a completely arbitrary line, which has the ability to make a traveler an entire day younger.

Sure, you might only be younger on the calendar as opposed to in actuality, but thanks to the existence of the International Date Line, trans-Pacific travelers technically possess the ability to go back in time.

Gadling's Instagram feed is going to get a lot more Hawaiian this week, as I'm moving the Gadling lens from the snowy confines of the Alhambra in southern Spain to the sunny shores of Maui, Hawaii.

Though one could argue that Maui is a scenic place to photograph during all months of the year, March is a particularly scenic time on the Valley Isle since this also happens to be the peak of whale season.

Stay tuned over the next seven days as we take you behind waterfalls, stroll down sandy beaches, head to the water in search of humpbacks and while away days beneath the shade of a palm.

So where ever you may be, if the weather outside is looking more winter than summer, grab some coconut oil, put on your favorite Oren Masserman tune, and tap into the Instagram feed @GadlingTravel for some virtual Hawaiian warmth.

Want to get in on the action? Mention @GadlingTravel in your own photo AND use the hashtag #gadling, and your photo will be considered for our Gadling Photo Of The Day.

[Photo Credit: @SailTrilogy on Instagram]