If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, yes, it is.

No, the beaches of Lake Erie didn't suddenly become in high demand. Rather, Hawaiian Airlines just doubled the amount of non-stop flights on its direct routes to Maui out of Oakland and San Jose. To celebrate this momentous occasion the airline is offering unheard of fares that will leave you digging through your closet for that old aloha shirt.

So what kind of fares are we looking at?

Let's take a look:

For travel purchased by October 8 and completed by December 13, round-trip tickets are going for as low as $290.

A flight to Cleveland during the same time period? How about $410.

This is just another example of off-season travel offering up affordable deals to destinations frequently lumped into the "too expensive" category.

Need more reasons to visit the islands during the fall? How about football on TV by the time you wake up.

Everyone loves a mai-tai in the morning!

Don't look now, but according to a recent article by CNN there is currently much ado about nothing going on in the East China Sea.

If you have never heard of the Senkaku Islands that's okay. Nobody lives there, so it's not as if you're going to offend anybody. In fact, the jury remains out on whether that's even the name of this uninhabited island group located between Taiwan and the Japanese island of Okinawa.

China refers to the islands as the Diaoyu Islands, whereas neighboring Taiwan refers to them as the Tiaoyutai Islands. Japan, meanwhile, is adamant they be called the Senkaku Islands, while English-language mariners have simply begun calling them the Pinnacle Islands, most likely because we simply have a knack for butchering Asian words.

The issue, however, is not about the name; it's about who actually owns these islands. China claims that they have been part of Chinese sovereign territory since the 16th century, which is odd seeing as Japan officially laid claim to them in 1895.

An enterprising Japanese entrepreneur attempted to start a fish operation on the island, failed, and then subsequently sold four of the islands to the Kurihara family of Japan. With their uninhabited rocks now in hand, the islands were promptly taken over by American forces in WWII along with most of the other islands in the area until eventually being handed back in 1972.

This is where things really get weird. Japan got the islands back from the US, and from 2002-2012 the Japanese government paid the Kurihara family ¥25 million per year ($321,500) to rent the uninhabited rocks in the middle of nowhere. Finally, this past month, the government decided they were sick of renting and just went ahead and bought the islands for a cool ¥2 billion ($25.8 million).

Travelers taking issue with budget airline Ryanair is nothing new. In fact, it now seems to simply be commonplace.

First, there was the Norwegian man who was arrested after complaining that the in-flight sandwich he purchased tasted like rubber. Then, of course, there were the passengers who staged a sit down strike in Belgium after being told they must take a bus 225 miles to their
final destination after being rerouted. The list really does go on from here.

The ire doesn't stop with the passengers, however, as there was also the Ryanair pilot who was coincidentally transferred to Lithuania after publicly making remarks against the company, a move, which ultimately caused the veteran pilot to quit. Recently, there has even been talk of Ryanair making customers pay to use the lavatory.

As usual, this can all be traced back to Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary who also wants to do away with co-pilots and has suggested that long-haul flights offer free oral sex.

Oftentimes, such stunts are attributed to extreme marketing moves meant to gather attention, and it has seemed that recently Ryanair has backed off a bit from their ludicrous outcries.

Or, maybe not.

According to a recent Time Business article, when a passenger traveling from Alicante, Spain, back home to England complained of Ryanair charging her a fee of €60/person to print boarding passes for her family of five (a total of $390), Time reports that O'Leary branded the woman as "stupid" and called the rest of Ryanair passengers "idiots."

Two very unique things happened in the Aran Islands last month: people talked on the street conversing only in Gaelic, and world-class divers threw themselves off of an 89-foot-high platform into a rectangular blowhole known as the Serpent's Lair.

A collection of three inhabited islands off the western coast of Ireland, the Aran Islands are regarded as being one of the last places on the planet where it's still possible to hear the Gaelic language spoken amongst the majority of locals.

The commitment to maintaining the Irish heritage in the Aran Islands is so strong that the main island of Inis Mor even houses a coláiste, an Irish-only language school where students caught speaking English at any point are open to expulsion without refund of their tuition.

With that thought in mind, I wonder what the Gaelic term is for "psychotic cliff-diving freak athlete," because I can imagine that was mumbled a number of times by the crowds of local onlookers watching divers jump 28 meters (89 feet) into a roiling cauldron of freezing cold seawater.

Last month's participants found themselves jumping into the fourth stop on the 2012 Red Bull World Series of Cliff Diving, "The Serpent's Lair," a naturally occurring, perfectly-rectangular blowhole, which according to Irish lore was once home to a tempestuous and violent sea serpent.

With the serpent nowhere in sight for this year's competition, divers instead needed to worry about doing a belly flop at speed's topping out at 60mph.

Next up on this year's circuit? The September 8 event being held in the similarly chilly waters of Wales.

Stretching for 52 miles, across 59 bridges, and around 620 curves, Maui's famous and historic "Road To Hana" is not for the weak of stomach. Despite being listed on The National Register of Historic Places and as one of the Top 10 Scenic Drives in America by Lonely Planet, for many Maui visitors, the thought of enduring the switchbacking, nearly three-hour drive is simply too much too handle.

In a nutshell, they would rather pass up seeing the entire east end of the island than get behind a wheel on that road.

Luckily for all would-be Hana travelers out there, Mokulele Airlines and the Travaasa Hana hotel have recently partnered to bring back twice-daily service from Maui's Kahului airport to Hana's coastal airstrip beginning on October 1. Along the 20-minute flight passengers of the nine-seat Cessna will be privy to waterfall views and the lush rainforest, which blankets the eastern swath of the island.

With fares starting at $59 each way it's definitely a pricier option than fueling up the rental car and tackling the hundreds of turns. As part of the partnership, however, guests who opt to book a three-night all inclusive stay at the hotel will be given the tickets for free, a nice perk of spending three days in a town regarded as one of the most beautiful and relaxing of anywhere in the entire Hawaiian island chain.

While the flight option dramatically reduces the commute time for Hana travelers, given the notorious tradewinds on the island's eastern flank, I can only assume it's still going to be a bumpy - yet beautiful - flight.

You don't need to have traveled to France to be familiar with the French concept of laissez-faire.

A phrase, which translates to "let it be" amongst economic scholars, references the way in which governments should, in theory, let an economy take care of itself. "Hands off," essentially.

Despite being an academic term rooted in economics, many travelers to France might argue that this laissez-faire mentality has permeated everyday French culture in that sometimes it seems the French people simply can't be bothered with petty concerns.

"Do what you want, I don't care, it will take care of itself." That sort of feeling.

Often times American travelers, in turn, wrongly label this as laziness. While the French versus American culture debate will have to wait for a different day, there simply are aspects of French culture that Americans will never understand.

Of course, there are also things that us Americans do that the French view as curious and weird. For example, many French people I know find it inconceivably odd how casually American's drop the word "love" (as in "OMG I love U" to a casual acquaintance or saying how you "love" someone's new shirt).

Regardless, I, for one, am a fan of the French laissez-faire. One place I often notice this "couldn't care less" mentality is whenever I am wine tasting in France. Unlike California's Napa Valley where wineries have the audacity to ask for $20/person for a tasting, many times at French vineyards there isn't even a tasting fee at all.

"There's only one thing wrong with this wave," quipped John, a 50-something-year-old surfer from Seattle, who, like the rest of us, had come to the Mexican outpost of La Saladita to score some perfect waves, warm weather and oceanfront lobsters and beer.

"It's too far of paddle to come back in and get a beer."

Such is the crux of long, perfect waves the world over. A long ride means a long paddle back out to the lineup, a reality, which renders the ability to enjoy a cold drink between waves to be virtually non-existent.

At a place where paddling back out to the lineup takes anywhere from 20-30 minutes – your arms, shoulders and back straining with use the entire time – a quick jaunt to shore for a beverage becomes a multi-hour rest break punctuated by a nap in a hammock.

Here in La Saladita, a user-friendly wave, which pumps out consistently head-high waves seemingly all summer long, you either drink beer on shore, or you go out and surf. There's no mixing the two, because as John so aptly stated, the beers are just simply too far from the waves.

But they don't have to be.

In the eight months I've been penning "Vagabond Tales" I've written about experiences from all corners of the globe.

Some of them have been exotic such as swimming with elephants in Thailand, and others have been a bit more dangerous such as kayaking with Alaskan killer whales or nearly being kidnapped in a Borneo jungle. I have ventured onto floating islands in Lake Titicaca, roasted marshmallows over an active volcano in Guatemala, and snorkeled with irukandji – one of the deadliest animals on Earth – off the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

Over that same period of time I've dined on everything from wine and cheese in the south of France to live clams in an underwater cave in Vietnam.

This past week, however, I went and did something I've never done before:
I ate at a Bojangles restaurant in the American south.

Wait. Are you kidding me? Bojangles? You're calling this a travel experience?

As I explored in my article "Why Do We Take Pictures Of Our Food?" regional cuisine is as much a part of the travel experience as are museums, monuments, or UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Eating ceviche in Peru is as integral to the country as Machu Picchu. Pairing a Guinness with a pot of beef stew is as important to an Irish visit as kissing the Blarney Stone or staying in a Connemara Castle.

Of course you've heard of Bali, but have you heard of Bintan?

Of the 18,000 or so islands, which make up the archipelago of Indonesia, the same five or six names invariably pop up when it comes to Indonesian tourism. Bali, the Gili Islands, Sulawesi, Java, Flores, Sumatra ... but what about Bintan?

Believe it or not, in terms of overall visitor numbers, Pulau Bintan is actually one of the highest visited and most popular destinations in all of Indonesia. Located only 50 minutes by ferry from the urban metropolis of Singapore, Pulau Bintan is a favorite weekend getaway for Singapore businessmen and their families who are looking to leave the city behind and escape to Indonesia for a few days.

The only problem with this, however, is that Pulau Bintan isn't really Indonesia. Well, part of it is, but then there's a whole other part that simply, well, isn't.

Just in the same way that the island of Hispaniola is divided into Haiti on one side and the Dominican Republic on the other, Pulau Bintan is likewise divided into Bintan Resorts on one side of the border and Indonesia on the other.

Wait. Did you say Bintan Resorts? That's not a country.

Gallery: Pulau Bintan

Perhaps in the middle of the blackout, which recently left 620 million people without power, an enterprising young Indian engineer found himself sitting on a toilet in the dark.

While this is most likely not the case, it's an explanation which could potentially explain the news recently released by The Siasat Daily that India is attempting to power 1,000 eco-toilets by harnessing the methane released by human waste.

Having just recently installed the public eco-toilets in a bid to stave off open defecation, it became apparent that when using the government-supplied loos that night time visitors were left to do their business in total darkness.

When it came time to evaluate the design, in addition to widening the toilets and adding cross-ventilation, the possibility of putting a light inside of the toilet was also raised. This inevitably prompted researchers to figure out how to harness the methane accumulating inside of the toilet and use the gas to power a simple light.

According to the article, these eco-toilets use "bio-digester technology," where bacteria feeds on the human fecal matter and releases two byproducts: methane and water.

While the jury is still out on how to effectively use the methane, solutions have already been found as to what to do with the water.

Apparently, the idea is to use it as a safe source of drinking water for local animals; it has also recently been used in the irrigation of local vegetables.

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Sustainable sanitation]