Experimental observations are used to quantitatively describe purely elastic instabilities in viscoelastic jets issuing from a capillary and an orifice. Beyond a critical value of the dimensionless flow rate, or Deborah number, the flow becomes unstable and the purely elastic flow transition occurs. The instabilities result in free surface distortion in the form of vertical stripes laid longitudinally along the axis of the jet. The stripes uniformly spaced along the periphery of the jet are observed by photo-imaging measurements for PIE-based Boger fluid. The critical conditions for the onset of surface distortions and spatio-temporal characteristics of the instabilities are reported. Measurements of the extrudate swell are also conducted for different values of capillary diameter to systematically examine the effect of geometry.