Randy Johnson is a widely published photojournalist who frequently contributes to regional and national online and print publications. He was keynote speaker at NATJA's early Newport, Rhode Island meeting.

In 2024, a new 3rd edition of Johnson's FalconGuide Best Easy Day Hikes Great Smoky Mountains National Park debuts. A new second edition of his "cult classic" 1987 book Southern Snow: The New Guide to Winter Sports from Maryland to the Southern Appalachians was released in 2019 and it won a SKADE Award from the International Ski History Association. A new softbound edition of his award-winning book Grandfather Mountain: The History and Guide to an Appalachian Icon was just released in 2023 by the University of North Carolina Press (nominated for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and winner of the bronze medal in travel from the 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards). Also recently, a full-color fourth edition of his bestselling FalconGuide Hiking North Carolina was released in summer 2020 (winner of a Natja Award for best book photography). His full color 4th edition FalconGuide Hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway was released in 2022, as was Best Easy Day HikesBlue Ridge Parkway.

Johnson is a Lowell Thomas Award-winning travel writer who for nearly twenty years was editor-in-chief of Hemispheres magazine, United Airlines award-winning inflight. Under Randy's guidance, Hemispheres earned dozens of Eddy, Ozzie, Lowell Thomas, and NATJA awards. Hemispheres is the only inflight to win a James Beard Award and was named world's best inflight magazine in 2006.