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HOLIDAY FAMILY TRAVEL EXPERT: TRISH McDERMOTT

It’s no secret that traveling with children, and especially with babies, during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays can be exhausting and incredibly stressful. Just under 50 million Americans will be traveling for Thanksgiving this month. Families love to go home for the holidays! For traveling families, crowded airports, unwieldly baggage, long flights with cranky little ones, and hotels and vacation rentals that don’t always meet their very basic needs can be incredibly stressful.

Nationally recognized family travel expert, and co-founder of Babierge (baby + concierge), Trish McDermott, comes to the rescue. Trish will provide insider family travel tips to help you and yours overcome the challenges of holiday season travel. She will discuss everything from how to book kid-friendly accommodations, why it’s so much easier to rent baby gear (and even a Christmas tree or Menorah) at your destination than it is to lug it through the airport, how to easily and quickly get your family through the TSA checkpoint, how to survive a long flight with little ones, and how to guarantee your baby will sleep well at your vacation destination After all, holiday family travel should be a restful and relaxing vacation for everyone—even parents!

Some of the Family Holiday Travel Tips Travel Trish McDermott offers are:

• Where to stay: Book hotels and vacation rentals that meet basic baby and toddler needs. Safe, warm, quiet, equipped with a bathtub, easy access to food and diapers at a nearby store and located near a local park or play structure (or sledding hill). Bonus points if the hotel offers kid-friendly holiday activites.

• What not to pack: The lighter you pack, the easier you travel. Aim to fly with a carry-on only. Use a baby equipment rental company like Babierge to rent gear like cribs, strollers, car seats, high chairs and toys which can be delivered to your hotel or vacation rental. You can even have a pre-lit Christmas tree and stockings for your firecplace delivered.

• Christmas Gifts: Order everything online and have your Christmas gifts shipped directly to your location. Save the boxes to ship them home too.

• Baby Jet Lag: A week before you travel begin to gradually adjust your baby’s naptime and bedtime to move closer to your destination time zone. Consider a flight that takes off right around baby’s bedtime too.

• Avoid TSA Meltdowns:
1. Ask to be put in a special line for families (this often moves you to the front of the line).
2. Dress everyone in metal-free clothing and older children in shoes that are easy to remove and put back on. Children under 12 can wear their shoes during screening.
3. Explain security procedures and their purpose to your children in advance.
4. If you are holding a toddler when you go through screening and the alarm beeps, both you and your little one are subject to search. If your toddler can walk, encourage her to walk through on her own.
5. You can bring formula, breast milk and juice in greater than 3.4 ounce bottles through screening. Inform the TSA officer you are carrying them in advance and remove them from your carry-on bag for separate screening. They might get tested for explosives though. Ice packs are OK too.
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• Survive Long Flights:
1. Try to sit near the front of the plane—it’s a quieter ride.
2. Dress your children in comfortable AND adorable clothing. Your fellow passengers will forgive super cute children for noisiness or other minor misbehaving.
3. Bring one-day’s-worth of baby food, other snacks, drinks and a change of clothing for each child and yourself—holiday flight delays are always a possibility.
4. Quiet toys keep everyone happy.
5. Your airplane tray table is a petri dish of disgusting germs. Bring a tray table cover and keep it covered during the entire flight.
• Get Some Sleep: When babies sleep well, everyone gets to rest and recharge on vacation. Do your best to replicate your baby’s and toddler’s sleep environment at home. Use a full-size wooden crib and bring the sheet your baby last slept on at home. (Don’t wash it.) This way while he may be in a new environment, his sheet smells and feels like home to him.

• Leverage The Collaborative Economy: Millennial parents will look to the sharing economy for much of their holiday travel this year. Leave the family dog with a loving family via Rover, rather than at a kennel, stay at a kid-friendly rental via Airbnb or Kid & Coe, have your car seats delivered right to the airport via Babierge and then grab a Lyft to get to your hotel.

Trish McDermott Bio

Trish McDermott is an experienced radio and television spokesperson, having honed her skills as a co-founder of Match.com and the site’s global spokesperson for ten years. She has appeared on The Today Show, 60 Minutes, NPR, Nightline and just about every radio and television program that aired segments on dating, romance and the Internet during her decade at Match.. Trish was talent for Match.com’s radio commercials and featured in onboard television program for Princess Cruise’s “Romance Department.” Now as Co-founder of the world’s largest baby gear rental platform Babierge (baby + concierge) at www.babierge.com, McDermott has developed a keen expertise about, and can speak articulately to, the pain points of family travel and how the collaborative economy is addressing them. Babierge is helping families travel to over 100 destinations in the US and Canada and opening new destinations weekly.

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on 50,000th Corporate Angel Network Patient Flight.  Good News speaks to Peter Fleiss – Corporate Angel Network’s Executive Director Emeritus

On the evening of April 14, 2016, one-year-old cancer patient Baron Yerby will fly home to Atlanta after a treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering.  However, this flight will be quite different than the others he’s taken after treatment. Instead of flying on a crowded commercial plane with the potential for immune deficiency issues, he and his parents will fly in comfort, free of charge, on a corporate jet, belonging to NCR, a Fortune 500 Company headquartered in Atlanta. The flight was arranged by Corporate Angel Network, (www.corpangelnetwork.org <http://www.corpangelnetwork.org>  <http://www.corpangelnetwork.org> ) the only charitable organization in the United States whose sole mission is to help cancer patients access the best possible treatment for their specific type of cancer by arranging free travel in the empty seats of corporate jets. It’s also their 50,000th patient flight.

When Baron was three months old, his parents, Jonathan, a college professor, and Casey, a social worker, became concerned about an odd glow in his right eye. He was soon diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer. The tumor in his right eye was huge and there were smaller tumors in the left eye. After receiving chemo in Atlanta, all seemed to be going well, but 30 new tumors suddenly appeared in Baron’s left eye. The family was told that all treatment options had been exhausted – except for one that was performed only at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC.  The procedure directs a high dose of chemo right to the eye tumor by going up through Baron’s groin and prevents the effects of systemic chemo. He has already lost sight in his right eye but currently the tumors have stopped growing. However, due to his age and his high risk of reoccurrence, trips to New York will go on for the foreseeable future. The Yerbys discovered Corporate Angel Network through a social media community of parents facing similar diseases.  These flights greatly reduce their emotional stress and enable patients to avoid crowded, germ-laden airports and planes.

If you'[d like to do a story about Corporate Angel Network please contact  The Yerbys, Peter Fleiss, Executive Director Emeritus of Corporate Angel Network, and Jeff Michael, Director of Aviation of NCR’s Flight Department will be available for interviews at 8:00pm, prior to the 9:22pm flight from Teterboro airport on April 14. (For directions and instructions ? please contact Mona). By commemorating the 50,000th flight, Corporate Angel Network hopes to inform more potential patients and corporations of their important work. Since its inception in 1981, Corporate Angel Network, a 501©(3) organization with Public Charity status, has been matching patients needing to travel for treatment and corporate partners whose jets already travel the desired routes for business. Over 500 well-known corporations participate in Corporate Angel Network’s program, including half of the Fortune 100 and many in the Fortune 500 resulting in more than 225 patient flights every month.

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Speaking at the Chinese New Year Spring Reception organised by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York (HKETONY), Mr Leung said that international airlines opened new direct flights to Seattle, Dallas/Fort Worth and Newark, adding that Cathay Pacific Airways will launch its inaugural direct flight from Hong Kong to Boston in May.

Hong Kong imported US$40 billion worth of U.S. goods last year (2014), and improved access for US agricultural products and made the city the most open market for US beef in Asia. Meanwhile, Hong Kong and the US concluded agreements to combat tax evasion.

Noting that The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal have recently ranked Hong Kong as the freest economy in the world for 21 consecutive years, Mr. Leung said Hong Kong would continue to capitalise its position as China’s global financial center. “We’ll leverage our ‘superconnector’ role between the Mainland of China and the rest of the world.”

He told the American guests that Hong Kong was working to promote new growth sectors of arbitration, intellectual property trading, creative industries, as well as innovation and technology. “We are upgrading the quality of our workforce as we are facing an aging population and are making it easier for talented people and entrepreneurs from around the globe to come, stay, live, work and establish a business there,” he added.

Also speaking at the occasion, Director of HKETONY, Mr Steve Barclay said aside from promoting closer economic, investment and trade ties, his office aims also to foster cultural ties between Hong Kong and the 31 eastern states.

He highlighted the first collaboration with the Yale-China Association to bring two promising Hong Kong artists to Yale University on a fellowship program. Parry Ling , a relational artist, and Hao Yang, a choreographer/dancer, are currently on a six-month residency at Yale.

Mr Barclay said the Office would organise a week-long “Spotlight Hong Kong” exhibition at Time Warner Center from February 25. The exhibition will focus on Hong Kong’s vibrant mix of East-meets-West cultures – from cultural heritage, creative and film industries to performing arts.

One of the exhibits will be a series of Hong Kong Street Markets which were painted by US nationally recognized illustrationist Michael Sloan during his residency in Hong Kong in 2012-14.

The exhibition will also help promote the US debut of the Hong Kong Dance Company’s performance, “The Legend of Mulan”, at Lincoln Center from March 5 to 8.

To reach out to the US young generation, Mr Barclay said his office has launched a new Facebook – Hong Kong Meets America. It carries all sorts of trendy, useful and interesting information about the city.
To promote Hong Kong music talents, the reception featured performances by the Cornelia String Quartet, led by violinist CheHo Lam; and singer songwriter Mara Measor, both Hong Kong-born and raised.
The reception ended with a grand lucky draw, with the winner receiving a pair of Newark-Hong Kong round trip premium economy tickets sponsored by Cathay Pacific Airways.

About 370 guests, mainly comprising key members of the business, government, academic and media sectors, attended the reception in New York.

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Holiday Travel…Not as simple as “over the river and through the woods”.

Since the beginning of time, “travel” has been linked with “the holidays.” Even the trip to Grandma’s house, over the river and through the woods, has been immortalized in song! But these days, packing up the family for the holidays can be a difficult task. To help us get there comfortably, for less money, and with minimal stress, travel expert and mom of three, Kendra Thornton has some helpful tips.

With extra costs tacked on to air travel, especially when making last minute travel plans, many of us will be relying on the family car to get us where we need to go this season. According to AAA, millions of us will be hitting the road this holiday season, making car travel the preferred mode.

Kendra will offer advice on:

• Money-saving tips while on the road
• Secrets for smarter packing like leaving non-essentials behind and buying on the road. Even your car has weight restrictions!
• How to travel with your kids and pets and make sure they are comfortable
• Last minute, long distance travel: advice on searching for best rates on flights, hotels or rental cars, even now…it’s not too late!

Kendra will help you navigate the busy holiday travel season. No matter where your travels take you and your family, you’ll be sure to be well-prepared.

Travel Expert, Kendra Thornton has been packing her bags and traveling the world since she visited the Bahamas at 3 months old. She comes from a family of travel agents, giving her a unique angle on the industry, Thornton appears regularly as a leisure and business travel expert on ABC, CBS, NBC and CW affiliates across the country to share travel trends, tips and deals with millions of viewers every year. She’s also been quoted frequently on travel trends and issues in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, and appeared regularly on the ABC, CBS and WB networks and affiliate stations across the country to discuss travel.

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS:

• What are some of the most notable trends in holiday travel this year?

• If we’re hitting the road, what are your top money-saving tips?

• What are some things we should check to ensure our cars are ready for the trek?

• How can we make sure our kids and pets have a comfortable trip?

• What are your secrets for packing light?

• If we decide to travel at the last minute, how can we find the best rates on flights, rental cars and hotels?

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