Meet Johnny Jet

December 18, 2008 | Uncategorized

Meet him on the street and you’d never guess he was a great world traveler. In fact, one of the world’s great travelers. He even lists his occupation as “Professional Traveler.”

Meet John DiScala, aka Johnny Jet, born in Connecticut and now living in Manhattan Beach, CA when he’s not off somewhere else in the world. And he’s off somewhere about 275 days a year. Quite a schedule — and accomplishment — for a guy who was once terrified of flying.

John produces a blog and the weekly newsletter JohnnyJet.com, subscribed to by more than 40,000 people worldwide. It’s quite good because of its unbiased, non-puffery view of traveling anywhere and everywhere.

Read it and you’ll be regaled by his “down-home” descriptions of his experiences and the places he travels — this year he’s been around the world twice, booking about 140,000 miles on 23 different airlines (flying many carriers multiple times) to a list of destinations that will make your head spin and your travel agent salivate. When we exchanged emails in June he was in Berlin. A few weeks ago, in Shanghai. Spring in Thailand. January in South Africa. Plenty of places in the U.S. in-between.

His most recent trip was also potentially his most terrifying travel experience — he missed checking into the Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel right before the terrorist attack because he had been delayed en route. “I’m very lucky,” he told me a few days ago.

John started his career as a college recruiter, sending email travel tips back to his friends and colleagues. When someone suggested that he turn his tips into the newsletter and asked for a name he immediately thought of “Johnny Jet” — based on his teenage nickname “Johnny Jet Ski”, earned during his summers on Long Island Sound.

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Far now from LI Sound except when visiting family back East, he finds his biggest problem is just keeping up with work when he travels. I’m suspect he has Bluetooth imbedded in his brain and is constantly transmitting information for the newsletter and his blog wherever he goes. That’s not too far-fetched when you consider the tremendous amount of information he gathers while traveling and speaking with everyone he meets — fellow travelers, pilots at airports, you name it, or them. The video to the left is him on CNN last year.

Trips he liked a lot? Fiji, Thailand and Abu Dhabi. On the other end of the scale — the $52 per person breakfast at the Four Seasons Bora Bora. You can read about them, and much more, at JohnnyJet.com.