Editor’s note: If you know a member of the travel community who has been impacted by the LA Wildfires, please add their GoFundMe or other donation links to this Google Doc.
After several of Antoinette Delio’s clients lost their homes in the Los Angeles Palisades fire, the travel advisor quickly went to work, booking two of them at the Huntley Santa Monica Beach hotel and securing other clients at the Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village — even when the property was mostly sold out.
The kicker? Delio, of Luxury Travel and Beyond, also lost her Pacific Palisades home to the same fire — and left with little more than her car and a small bag containing a picture book of herself as a child with her parents. The day she evacuated, Tuesday, Jan. 7, was the anniversary of her mother’s death.
Antoinette Delio saw the Palisades fire from across the street as she was leaving her home.
Credit: 2025 Antoinette Delio"It happened so fast,” she said, recalling how the wildfire that began that morning quickly jumped in size until it was across the street. “Getting out was so treacherous. It was bumper-to-bumper [traffic], and there were only two ways out [that I knew of]. I was driving on Sunset Boulevard in one direction, and then I saw a fire breaking out, so I had to make a U-turn. I don’t even know how I did that. Everyone was trying to leave, and nobody could move.”
Miraculously, her husband — who had stayed behind to try and saturate everything with water so that the “fire would skip their house” — drove onto Sunset right in front of her and was able to lead them through a “secret way” out of the neighborhood.
When she found out her home had burned down, her friend, Monika Grundnig, the director of leisure sales at Las Ventanas al Paraiso, A Rosewood Resort, quickly reached out to Aleksandr Sigalus, director of global business development for Santa Monica Travel & Tourism.
Antoinette Delio's home was destroyed by the Palisades fire, which is larger than 23,000 acres as of press time.
Credit: 2025 Antoinette Delio
In five minutes, she was able to secure a stay at the Huntley, confirmed in a group text message with Sigalus.
Delio calls the Huntley hotel the perfect place for her right now — noting that the hospitality has been excellent, from the director of corporate and leisure sales, Octavia Lee, to the hotel manager, Manju Raman. She added that they have fully opened their doors, with firefighters and first responders among their guests.
Delio is encouraging other evacuees to check in, as well, and plans to stay for a couple weeks as she looks for housing.
“My friends from all over the world have been reaching out,” she said, adding that she feels grateful for the outpouring of love and support she has received from the travel community.
Another advisor at her firm, Liesel Hlista, started Delio’s GoFundMe page with travel advisor Stephanie Malakie of Empress Travel Club.
And Pete Alles, the general manager of the Mauna Launi, Auberge Resorts Collection property on Hawaii Island, invited her to stay when she is ready.
The humanity she has experienced has “meant the world” to her.
But I say, ‘Bother me, please. It means so much to me to continue to do this.’
“Anything I can do for people, I am going to do now,” she said. “My clients just called me — they didn’t lose their house, but they are being displaced. So, I am going to help them. I love people so much, so I have to help. It feels so good to help.”
It’s all circular, she says, noting that her clients at the Four Seasons Westlake befriended another couple who lost their home. When they asked her clients how they were able to get a room there, they said it was because they have “the best travel advisor in the world.”
“They said, ‘Give us her number. We are going to need a trip after this,’” she said. “And they have texted me already.”
Delio says that she is still actively working with clients who are traveling.
"And my clients are all so beautiful, and they say they don’t want to bother me,” she said. “But I say, ‘Bother me, please. It means so much to me to continue to do this.’”
