Valarie D’Elia, a travel reporter who visited 102 countries on all seven continents to advise her viewers and listeners on where to go, how to get there, what the best bargains were and what to pack, died on Sept. 10 in Manhattan. She was 64.
The death, in a hospital, was caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative neurological disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, her husband, Ron Cucos, said.
From 1998 to 2017, Ms. D’Elia appeared regularly in a segment called “Travel With Val” on the local cable TV station now known as Spectrum News NY1. She also hosted a syndicated radio program, “The Travel Show,” and wrote a blog, which included the trademark feature “D’Elia’s Deals.” (Her personal mantra was “Travel with VALue.”)
Her viewers, listeners and readers might learn that ski resorts in the Canadian Rockies were opening in early November that year because of snow storms; that a hotel near London was offering complimentary honeymoon accommodations to couples who got married there; or that rare winter discounts were available at a resort in the Florida Keys timed to school vacations the first week of January in several Southern states.
Her advice was coveted. (Her favorite was “Pack light, forget the blow-dryer — who wants to worry about all that stuff?”) Her wanderlust was celebrated. Her documentary “The Making of a Maestro: From Castelfranco to Carnegie Hall,” the story of the conductor Sir Antonio Pappano, won first place in the North American Travel Journalists Association’s competition for travel videos in 2018.
Voyages were in her genes. In 1902, her maternal great-grandfather, an Italian immigrant, opened a travel agency in Bridgeport, Conn., that mostly sold steerage tickets on trans-Atlantic crossings. The business was inherited by her grandparents and her parents.
Ms. Elia took trips by ocean liner with her family as a child. She later became a cruise ship enthusiast and promoted efforts to preserve the landmark S.S. United States.
She coupled her two passions, journalism and journeying, by monitoring and broadcasting snow forecasts for skiers. She later expanded into travel reporting and producing for HBO, Travel Channel and the WOR Radio Network, among other outlets.
Valarie Ann D’Elia was born on Jan. 20, 1960, in Bridgeport to Paul and Rita (Ertie) D’Elia.
After graduating from Trumbull High School in Connecticut, she earned a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Miami and a master’s from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
In the late 1980s, her freelance reports on the best escapes from Connecticut winters led to a job on the nascent Travel Channel as a producer. She was later appointed director of production for the HBO Visitor Information Network.
She operated a travel production company, and in 2022 her documentary “Saving Southern Italy” was a winner at the Montecatini International Short Film Festival in Italy.
In addition to Mr. Cucos, Ms. D’Elia is survived by her brothers, Daniel and Paul.
She wrote her blog from a converted second bedroom in her Upper East Side apartment that was furnished with a silk rug she purchased in Turkey and a bathroom modeled on one she had fancied in a Ritz-Carlton hotel during her travels.
“It’s one of my favorite things: taking a bath while looking out at the moon through the window,” Ms. D’Elia told The New York Post in 2010.
“What I like most about the view is that it showcases all the transportation options that a travel reporter could ask for,” she said. “Boats and ferries sailing up the East River, cars tied up in traffic along the F.D.R. Drive, Amtrak chugging along the railroad trestle bridge and flights taking off from L.G.A. and J.F.K.”
After spending about 60 percent of each year on the road for decades, in recent years she usually took only one annual vacation — a trip, with Mr. Cucos, to the Caribbean.
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