Quick Facts
CapricornBiography
Janek Rubeš (born Jan Rubeš, 24 December 1987) is a Czech reporter, documentarist, vlogger and director. He is mainly known as Honest Guide, which is the name of the YouTube channel which he runs with his cameraman friend Honza Mikulka (born Jan Mikulka). The channel provides tips for tourists, including tips on how to avoid tourist traps and scams in many cities, mainly Prague.
In 2016 the Czech edition of Forbes featured Rubeš in 30 under 30: 30 of the most talented Czechs under 30 years old. In 2019, he won the Novinářská křepelka (Journalist Quail, awarded to young journalists under the Award of Karel Havlíček Borovský) for his investigative and brave journalism. British newspaper The Independent called him and Jan Mikulka "the patron saints of Prague tourism".
Early life
Rubeš studied The Film Academy of Miroslav Ondricek in Písek and Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín. His father, Jan Rubeš, is known for his engagement in television production. His parents are divorced.
Career
In 2006, Rubeš filmed viral videos as part of a duo called Noisebrothers with Jindra Malík. Since 2006, he has been engaged with Czech internet television Stream.cz, for which he has created a number of successful programs over the years, including How to Do It, NBN, Life in Luxury, City of Scams ?, or Prague vs. Crooks. In Prague vs. Crooks (2015), he documented Prague as a city of organized crime. For example, he captured taxi drivers scamming tourists – charging them many times the normal price. He was also a cameraman for a series about architecture Gebrian versus or Jídlo s.r.o.
In 2018, he left Stream.cz and joined the newly emerging Czech news channel Seznam Zprávy, which is under ownership of the Czech internet portal and company Seznam.cz. Between 2018 and 2019, he hosted the talkshowV Centru (translated as In The Centre) which he was the author of.
Honest Guide
Since 2016, he has published his most popular series Honest Guide with his cameraman friend Honza Mikulka on YouTube. It is filmed mainly in English and sometimes in Czech. The channel provides tips for tourists, including tips on how to avoid tourist traps and scams in many cities, mainly Prague. They have also filmed in multiple cities in the Czech Republic (such as Český Krumlov, Pardubice and Brno) or abroad (New York, Kiev, Helsinki and Innsbruck).
The YouTube channel has more than 600 thousand subscribers and more than 100 million views.