Our mission statement is Memento Mori—Latin for “remember you must die.” It’s heavy, right? Stay with me…
Hi there... I’m Clayton, the founder of Jetsetter Alerts, and I want to share how all of this started. This might seem a bit odd or even too deep at first, but it’s raw, honest, and real.
There are many kinds of death—tragic, peaceful, painful, beautiful, or some messy mix. For most of my life, I was terrified—sad and angry about death—in a way that wasn’t healthy.
I cried myself to sleep as a kid, into my teens, and even into my 20s. I hid it from everyone—not even my mom knew I was lying there, staring at the ceiling, worried that one day I’d be gone.
Wild for a 6-year-old, right? I remember thinking, “But I won’t be able to play anymore. I’ll just lie there, and no one will talk to me—forever.” I can remember those thoughts as if they were yesterday, that's how real this was for me.
It followed me everywhere! Nearly every night at bedtime when the rest of the world around me was quite, my mind brain was into an emotional overdrive about my impending mortality! It was heavy, constant, and sadly unrelenting.
Then, in the middle of a several months long solo backpacking adventure around the world, it clicked! I realized all along that my fear was that I’d never truly live.
Memento Mori became a positive way to live. What tormented me for decades became my liberation.
The fear was gone, and what once haunted me became a challenge: how can I have the most beautiful death possible?
They always call it a “celebration of life,” but if you look around, most aren’t really celebrations. Mine won’t be that way. Sure, people will be sad, but what they won’t be able to say is, “He left so much undone.”
It’s all about priorities. I don’t care about my house, car, or name-brand anything. I care about Airbnb stays, train rides, and flights. You don’t have to be rich to travel—you just have to stop spending on the things that don’t matter in the end.
Because here’s the truth: if you were told you had 48 hours left, but could trade everything you own for 7 more days, would you hesitate? Would your loved ones say, “Nah, 48 hours is fine—keep the stuff”? Of course not. They’d be begging to give away everything—their things too—if it meant more time.
At the end, when death is finally right in front of us, all the meaningless stuff falls away with total clarity. No hesitation. So why do we wait until it’s too late to see it?
That’s why I call it a cheat code. I’ve chosen to live with that clarity now—not at the finish line, wishing I had lived differently.
If you spend your whole life chasing money, it can lead to the worst kind of ending—the one where, at the last minute, you’d trade every coin you ever saved for just a little more time.
In that moment, it clicks—but too late. Memento Mori—if only it guided you.
This may be a long mission statement and it may feel intense to some, but like I said—it’s real, and it’s the truth.
That’s why I founded Jetsetter Alerts. I was already hunting flights for myself, writing little programs to find ridiculous deals—so I thought: why not make it a business I love, charge a small fee to send the deals to others, and keep exploring—because Memento Mori.
So that’s what I did instead of going back to a life and job I was unhappy with, regardless of how well my previous career paid me. That backpacking trip around the world was the least amount of money I'd had in many years, and it was the richest I had ever felt. It all made sense finally! I was chasing the wrong things.
Living this way—and urging our members to live this way—shaped Jetsetter Alerts into what it is today.
Our community resonates with this rawness because it’s real. Our mission is to remind our members: death isn’t optional—but regret is. It only turns tragic if you remember Memento Mori when you’re out of time.
Dream trips are only called "dream trips" because of the price tag on the airfare to get there. We remove that barrier so our members can create as many moments as possible that make them feel alive.
Sign up below, create your travel profile, choose your departure areas so we know which alerts to send you, and let's start to conquer your bucket list because memento mori!
Jetsetter Alerts