Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 2 - Janek of Honest Guide

If you’ve lived in Prague, or if you traveled to Prague recently and spent at least a tiny bit of time researching your trip, you will be familiar with my first guest: Janek, the on-camera half of the duo that you know as Honest Guide. I know this may sound as a bit of overstatement, but for a certain generation or group of travelers (those who use YouTube as a tool of travel research), Janek and Honza may be the first ambassadors of Prague a traveler finds when researching Prague, thus becoming, in effect, the “faces of Prague” for many.

Janek and we have a history: (1) he crashed our wedding party (truth be told, it was designed to be easily „crashable“ - with an open Facebook invitation - and about 300 people showed up eventually, but only Janek brought some random tourists whom he met on the street like 10 minutes before. They did not believe they were crashing a real wedding party. It was fun.) and (2) we did an episode of Honest Guide together about Czech food in Prague, which you can see here. What connects us with Honest Guide is the fact that we have two different audiences: foreign visitors to Prague, and locals. When we shot the episode (I do recommend that you shoot an episode of Honest Guide with the guys because it was a super fun experience), you could see Czechs coming over and congratulating him on his work in investigative journalism (see Prague vs Crooks if you don’t know what we’re talking about) and foreign visitors approaching the guys for completely different reasons - they just love their tips for Prague and Janek’s on-camera personality.

But in the podcast, I did not ask Janek about how taxi drivers and exchange offices scam tourists. I wanted to know more about him, his own travels and creative process. The questions that are discussed in the podcast include the following:

Does being famous make life easier or harder?

Does he refuse free drinks when offered?

How many private messages does he get a week? And how many does he respond to? (Hint: Not a lot. He’s busy, people!)

How does he research his trips and what are his favorite destinations?

Can he turn off as a scam detective when he travels?

Has he ever been horribly scammed during his travels?

What does he miss from Prague when he travels?

Do drug dealers give great travel advice? (Really.)

What does he like to spend money on when he travels?

Hoe does Honest Guide handle approaching both Czech and foreign public?

What is the creative process behind Honest Guide? How do they come up with new content?

What is the most frustrating part of Honest Guide?

Is fighting the same cause over and over again worth it? Or is it tiring?

What is the one nasty thing Janek likes to eat?