Jeb Brooks is a travel enthusiast and a popular travel YouTuber.
He has over a million subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.
Introduction
Jeb Brooks was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and grew up there.
His mother, Nancy, is an artist and his father, William, was a professional speaker and the founder of The Brooks Group.
Jeb’s brother, Will, has a YouTube channel, Rennthusiast, covering Porsches.
His grandfather was a B-25 pilot and captain and served in Burma.
It all started with a book
His father was an avid traveller at a young age. Later, Jeb did a couple of trips with him.
As a kid, Jeb read the Guide to Airport Airplanes book, thanks to which he fell in love with airplanes.
At the time, Greensboro was a small town with only a few planes travelling there and people around him weren’t into aviation. Also, the town didn’t have a plane spotting culture.
But as Jeb loved planes, he started plane spotting and also enjoyed playing flight simulators.
At 8, he flew for the first time, in a Short 360 aircraft from Greensboro to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport with American Airlines and fell in love with flying.
His love for airplanes diminished when in middle school but he rekindled it when he started flying for work.
Jeb’s favourite airports for plane spotting are John F. Kennedy International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Frankfurt Airport and London Airport.
Sociology & Law
After doing his schooling from Greensboro Day School and Northwest Guilford High School in Greensboro, Jeb studied for a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.
Then, he moved to Phoenix and worked at Target Training International as an Assistant to the President for around a year, from 2005 to 2006.
Then, Jeb moved back to North Carolina and started working full-time at The Brooks Group, his family’s sales training business.
He joined Elon University School of Law in Greensboro to study for Law.
After working as a lawyer for a while, Jeb realized that the job wasn’t the right fit for him as he wasn’t very detail-oriented.
So, he continued working at The Brooks Group and is currently a Board Member there.
Rekindling his passion
As Jeb started flying all around the world while working at The Brooks Group, in 2017, he fell in love with travelling and rekindled his love for airplanes.
He published many books, Around the World in 80 Hours: My RTW Adventure In Search of Greener Grass, The Ultimate Book of Sales Questions, Perfect Phrases for the Sales Call, Perfect Phrases for Sales Referrals and The Sales Manager’s Dilemma: Stuck in the Middle.
First solo trip & GreenerGrass
In 2012, Jeb took his first solo trip around the world, with a SkyTeam ticket, and visited 12 countries in 34 days. He fell in love with international travel and experiencing different cultures.
As he wanted to remember the trip, he wrote about it on his GreenerGrass blog.
Jeb purchased the GreenerGrass domain name, in 2005, for a company’s project while working in a consulting company in Arizona. But as his boss didn’t like the name, he was left with the domain which he used for his travel blog in 2012.
Prior to publishing travel blog posts, he used to write self-help articles on his blog.
Inspirations & YouTube
In 2009, Jeb was at a conference near the San Francisco airport. As he was bored at the conference, he stepped out and started looking at the departing United Airlines’ 747s.
Back then, he wanted to get involved in aviation. But he couldn’t become a pilot as even though he took a few flying lessons and soloed, he couldn’t enjoy it.
Nevertheless, that moment inspired Jeb to get professionally involved in aviation, which he later did by becoming a YouTuber.
In 2016, Jeb used to travel a lot around the world for his family’s sales training and consulting business. And he used to watch a lot of trip report videos on YouTube, instead of watching TV, for entertainment and to know what to expect from flights.
Jeb was inspired by the videos of Dennis Bunnik, Sam Chui, Luxury Travel Expert, Paul Lucas, Paul Stewart, Josh Cahill and Simply Aviation. He was particularly inspired by Dennis’ style and got inspired by him to start vlogging.
At the time, he had to fly to Porto, Portugal for a project meeting. So, he booked a one-way ticket on Air France La Première.
As Jeb couldn’t find a single video on YouTube on the Air France La Première, he decided to film one.
So, he published his first video, “Air France First Class Flight, A380 | Washington Dulles to Paris!,” in July 2017 on his eponymous YouTube channel, which he started in December 2016.
In his first video, Jeb was nervous to speak to the camera, even though he was the only one in the first-class lounge at the Dulles International Airport. But nonetheless, it started his YouTube journey and eventually, he became confident on camera.
The success of his first video inspired him to continue on YouTube and he started consistently publishing videos which made him a successful YouTuber.
Jeb’s first viral video, “Delta A350 Inaugural,” was published in October 2017.
He is a full-time YouTuber and currently has 1.04M subscribers on his channel.
Jeb films with his iPhone and uses DJI microphones. He loves editing videos and edits with Final Cut Pro on his MacBook.
He interviewed Ed Bastian, Chief Executive Officer of Delta Air Lines and Sam Chui.
He affords his trips through his YouTube earnings and also funds his flights by cash, points and airline miles.
In addition to work, Jeb also flies for vacations and personal purposes.
He is more interested in aviation and its experiences than the travel destinations.
Jeb is a passenger experience enthusiast as he is interested in sharing his experiences as a passenger. He also loves airports.
Besides making videos on flights, he also makes videos on airports, trains, buses and ships.
During the COVID-19, Jeb became depressed as he couldn’t travel and was confined in Greensboro but Suzanne stood behind him. They travelled on Amtrak, which was partially operational at the time. It was his first train trip and he fell in love with it.
Personal life
Jeb met Suzanne in 2017, in Washington, after his first YouTube video and fell in love with her. They married in October 2021.
She is an aviation enthusiast, holds a master’s degree in aviation planning and is a transportation engineer. She loves airports more than airplanes.
She is a creative director for his channel and plans his trips. She is also a critic of his videos.
Jeb lives in Washington.
Tidbits
- Jeb has travelled to over 120 countries across 7 continents. His aim is to visit all the 193 Member States of the United Nations.
- He was born on 28 March. His birth year isn’t publicly available.
- Bolivia is his favourite country. He also likes Singapore, Cape Town, Tasmania, Sydney, Melbourne, Edinburgh, Washington, D.C., New Zealand and South America.
- Jeb’s favourite in-flight headphones are Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones II.
- He is an avid reader and his favourite book is The Four Agreements. He loves planning trips and hanging with his friends.
- United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are his favourite airlines for travelling in the US.
- Jeb loves long-haul travel and Airbus A350 is his favourite long-haul airliner. He also loves the A380.
- His favourite short-haul plane is the Boeing 737-700. He also likes Boeing 747, Boeing 727 and British Aerospace 146 airliners. He likes Qantas business class seats.
- Jeb couldn’t get his Private Pilot License as he suffers from migraine headaches and loses his vision for a while.
- He loves United livery. He loved the train experience on the Andean Explorer from Cusco to Arequipa.
- His favourite airports are Piedmont Triad International Airport in North Carolina, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington and Singapore Changi Airport.
So, how are you inspired by the success story of Jeb Brooks?
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