Why “Private Travel” Doesn’t Always Mean Private Jet—And Why That’s a Good Thing

Some words arrive already heavy with assumptions, dragging entire worlds of imagery behind them. “Private travel” is one of those phrases. Say it aloud and most people immediately conjure the same scene—gleaming runway, slimline jet, champagne flute balanced on a leather armrest, somewhere between Monaco and Aspen, probably a headline involved if they’re famous enough. There’s a certain script we’ve been fed, and it begins with the plane. The plane means you’ve made it. The plane means you’re untouchable.

But here’s the strange, less photogenic truth: most people who actually live in the world of private travel—who spend their lives either booking it or being inside it—don’t think that way at all. The jet is not the story. It’s just a tool. And not always a very good one, either.

Private jets are, at times, the least interesting part of a journey. Often, they’re a logistical compromise disguised as a status symbol. They are expensive, yes, but also inconvenient in their own ways—there are limited flight routes, maintenance delays, last-minute paperwork issues that no one mentions in the glossy narratives. I’ve watched people spend five times the cost of a first-class commercial ticket only to land later, with more stress, and less sleep. And when they do, they still have to get somewhere meaningful. That’s where the real work begins.

Private travel isn’t about aircraft. It isn’t even always about luxury. What it really means—when it’s done properly—is freedom. It’s the freedom to move through the world without compromise, without noise, without constantly being funneled toward someone else’s idea of what a good trip should look like. Private travel is about autonomy. The vehicle is irrelevant.

Some of the most private journeys I’ve ever planned had nothing to do with jets at all. There are villas tucked away on quiet islands, accessible only by a ferry that doesn’t advertise its schedule online. There are historic apartments inside old cities where locals close the shutters and nothing exists beyond the scent of coffee drifting through a courtyard. I’ve booked sleeper train compartments for clients that felt more decadent than any private flight—curling through mountain ranges with nothing but a bottle of wine and a window seat, the slow hum of the tracks working like a lullaby. Private travel isn’t about removing yourself from the world. It’s about choosing which parts of it you want to engage with—and when.

There’s a certain relief that comes when clients first realize this. They come to me, often slightly apologetic, confessing that they don’t really want “all that.” They don’t need the chef who’s flown in from three cities over or the villa with 18 bedrooms when they’re only two people. They’re tired of the noise, the show, the performance of wealth-as-experience. They want something quiet, something beautiful, something that doesn’t require a team of assistants just to leave the hotel.

And here’s the secret: some of the most private moments aren’t even expensive. Privacy is not always a matter of money. It’s a matter of design. A sunrise walk through a hidden park, timed perfectly to avoid the city’s rush. A dinner arranged at an out-of-the-way restaurant that doesn’t take online reservations—but knows to hold a table when I call. A sailing trip on a weekday afternoon when everyone else is still at work. The places that are hardest to find aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest price tags. They’re the ones with the most intention.

Of course, there’s still a psychology behind why people equate private travel with private jets. The plane promises an escape from all the frustrations of the modern world—delays, queues, security checks, bad coffee, worse legroom. It suggests a bypass of the entire system. And in some cases, that’s precisely what it offers. But it also traps people into thinking that speed and isolation are the only measures of a trip’s success. It flattens travel into a transaction. You go from Point A to Point B, but you experience nothing in between.

The real art of private travel lies in the details that no one photographs. The reason people hire consultants like me isn’t because they can’t find the fancy hotels on Google. It’s because they need someone to think about the parts they can’t see yet—the train timetables that don’t connect unless you shift dinner by forty-five minutes, the restaurant that only serves a particular seasonal dish in mid-October, the boutique that closes every afternoon except Thursday, the driver who knows which roads flood in spring and which ones stay open. Privacy isn’t just about avoidance. It’s about access—subtle, precise, considered access.

I’ve always believed that the best private journeys feel like secrets. They should never feel mass-produced, or worse, like an expensive version of a package tour. The goal is never to make clients feel like they’ve bought something extravagant. The goal is to make them feel like they’ve slipped through a hidden door that only they could have noticed, and found themselves somewhere remarkable—without anyone else knowing how they got there.

That’s what makes private travel meaningful. It isn’t about extravagance. It’s about creating space—mental, physical, emotional—for something unexpected to happen. For most people, those are the moments they remember. The quiet morning before the city wakes up. The taste of something familiar in an unfamiliar place. The sudden recognition of their own smallness in a vast landscape. No jet can buy those feelings. They have to be cultivated. They have to be allowed to arrive naturally.

Of course, there are still clients who want the jet. And sometimes, it’s the right choice—remote destinations, time-sensitive schedules, medical needs, complex family dynamics. I’ve booked plenty of them, and I understand their place. But I also know that they are not the pinnacle of private travel. They’re just a tool. The most interesting, fulfilling trips I’ve ever designed didn’t involve runways. They involved people willing to approach the world with curiosity and care, with trust in the process and an appetite for something beyond the obvious.

In the end, the real luxury of private travel isn’t the jet. It’s freedom. Freedom from expectations. Freedom from itineraries written for the masses. Freedom from the noise of the world pressing in.

And most of all, freedom to experience something that no one else can replicate—something quietly, perfectly yours.