Leading travel company Thomas Cook has launched a nationwide PR and sales drive to reassure members of the holiday-buying public that it’s safe to book with the company.

This follows eye-catching and sometimes damaging headlines about the world’s best known travel brand and the company’s finances – stories which made all the top national newspapers and TV channels. In the last couple of days Thomas Cook has been running a national advertising campaign and has cut up to £170 off holidays to try to recover from a recent 30 per cent drop in bookings, partly blamed from adverse publicity over financing.

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All week long, all I have wanted to do was wake up Friday morning and surprise my two youngest with a visit to see Santaland in Macys Herald Square, an annual holiday tradition for us.

I envisioned my boys jumping up and down for joy, except I didnt realize that Fridays Pizza Day in school was such a big deal.

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America’s first settlement looks remarkably young for its age.

Pensacola is way up near the Alabama border, about where you’d grip the “handle” of Florida’s Panhandle.

It’s where snowbirds staying on or around Perdido Key, the subject of last week’s column, go to shop and sightsee.

Pensacola was founded in 1559 by a Spanish sailor.

The original settlement collapsed, which is why another Florida city, St. Augustine, claims the title of America’s oldest continuously inhabited community. Still, the current city has been around 1698 and is rich in history.

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Its really cold outside, so how about seeing Paris, New York City, Tuscany and Australia without leaving your cozy bed?

Have a look at filmmaker David Coiffiers time lapse video and see just how much all cities look alike at night, and how clouds seem to be boiling over when viewed in fast forward.

Watch more of the world fly by in Wireds 10 Mesmerizing Time-Lapse Videos.