Longtime NY1 travel reporter Valarie D’Elia has died. D’Elia passed away on Tuesday, Sept. 10 following a battle with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), the local station announced. According to a friend, the beloved New York reporter had been diagnosed with the neurological disorder 18-months prior. She was 64.
D’Elia was a globe-trotting reporter who visited 103 countries across seven continents during her career and worked as a travel reporter for NY1 and the Travel Channel. Her love of travel was sparked by her family’s history, with her profile on University of Miami’s School of Communication’s website noting that she grew up in a family that has been in the travel business since 1902.
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“My great grandfather was the connection for immigrants to take the transatlantic trips from Italy to Ellis Island,” she said. “He became a travel agent out of the sandwich shop he worked in, because back then travel agencies did not exist.”
D’Elia majored in broadcast journalism at the University of Miami and later pursued a master’s from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She went on to combine her journalism education with her familial background in the travel industry, serving as a travel reporter for NY1 between 1998 and 2017.
“For nearly two decades, she loved traveling the city, country and world by air, sea and train, then reporting back to the NY1 audience,” the station said.
D’Elia also worked for the Travel Channel, HBO, and WOR Radio Network, but she was most recognized by New Yorkers for her Travel with Val segments. Reflecting on her career in a 2010 interview with the New York Post, D’Elia said she was usually on the road about 60% of the year, “then I get home and I have to put together the story: look at the video that was shot, write the script and edit footage.”
According to D’Elia’s friend, Perry Garfinkel, per The Sun, the beloved reporter battled “an 18-month struggle with the debilitating nervous system disease called Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.” Garfinkel remembered D’Elia in a Facebook post for her “relentless energy and multiple interests… She was only 64 years old and I know many in her world and around the world are grieving, as am I.”
D’Elia is survived by her husband Ron, “and will be missed by her family and friends,” NY1 said.
