"Surprise and nostalgia, that's what we were aiming for," says Tourists' Eric Kerns. "We wanted to take the concept of the classic roadside motel and turn it into something new."

Despite being just a stone’s throw from lower Manhattan, not one of New York’s nearly 9 million residents currently calls the island home.

At first, you might think it’s not much to look at, this beach. Just a swath of gritty black sand and a few lonely fishing boats basking in the clear bright sun, the inky Tyrrhenian Sea lapping solemnly at the shore.

But then, you don’t come to Stromboli, a tiny Aeolian island off the coast of Sicily, for the beach.

Until fairly recently, most of the world barely knew that the early Polynesians were among the greatest explorers on earth.