"Lightning struck a tree maybe 10 meters away from us."

David Beníček - Prague, Czech Republic

I first met David in our hostel in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. He was traveling Southeast Asia for his college exchange program. David is a great example of a person who takes advantage of his resources. Starting to traveling alone in his early 20s has given him world knowledge that most people work their entires lives for. One of my favorite memories of David, is sharing a Mr. Wong's buffet of beer and Chinese food with a large group of international travelers. Our entire group bonded over travel stories, our next adventurers and more. David is the type of person you want to meet while traveling. He's the definition of an early 20s solo traveler. 
~ Dan Hellinger
​

What's your wildest travel story you'd like to share?

"There was a lot of crazy stories during my year in Asia so it’s hard to pick. I went to North Korea and that was just pure surreal. Being under constant surveillance from our ‘guides’ (who were actually secret police) and then trying to smuggle pictures and banknotes out of the country was pretty tense. However, the scariest moment has got to be when I was backpacking in Myanmar in June and I did a three day hike. It was the first day and we trekked for about 6 hours up and down hills until we got to the top of a mountain. As we reached the ridge it started to rain…and we’re talking serious, Asian monsoon style rain. We found shelter in a little wooden hut where a lovely local woman served us some tea and we waited out the rain. The rain subsided after about 20 minutes and we started walking. Unfortunately it wasn’t long until the rain restarted and we were drenched. We decided that it didn’t make sense to walk back so we continued on but as we did so as a thunderstorm started right above us. We didn’t think much of it until lightning struck a tree maybe 10 meters away from us. It was possibly the loudest sound I ever heard. All the hair on my body stood up from the static electricity and the tree started smoking. Me and the one other guy on the hike froze standing still, stunned by what happened while our guide started running down the mountain and away from us. Me and my mate look at each other and then belted in pursuit of our trekking guide. Needless to say we got pretty lucky and in retrospect it was pretty funny that our guide just ditched us in such a moment like that." 
​~David Beníček

"I could be happy even if I was living from paycheck to paycheck as long as I’m surrounded by my friends and family and get to travel a little bit."

Is money or the power of knowledge more crucial to you?

"Knowledge – obviously money is a near necessity in today’s society but I’d like to think that I could be happy even if I was living from paycheck to paycheck as long as I’m surrounded by my friends and family and get to travel a little bit."

What improvements do you want to see Czech Republic make in the next 5 years?

"I am quite proud of my country and I love it the way it is right now but for the future I’d like to see it become less corrupt and focus more on its people. While I don’t particularly love him, I think that some of the work that our current president Zeman is doing with China and Russia will yield massive benefits to us in the future since we are one of the few EU countries that actually maintain good relations with these two giants. We are a small ex-communist country but despite that I think we are doing remarkably well and I’d like to think that the future is bright."

What aspirations do you want to achieve in life?

"I just finished a year studying in Asia and having never been there before I fell in love with the place. I definitely see myself going back there at some point but then again I still have plenty of other places to explore smile emoticon. I study computer science and management so my ultimate dream would be to work for one of the big names in the industry… Google would probably the top of the list but I’d also settle for IBM if pressed."

What would you want to tell a fellow traveler about your home country? 

"There's a lot more to Czech than just Prague. Don't get me wrong, Prague is a great place to start, but if you have time you should definitely check out places like Cesky Krumlov, Karlovy Vary, Karlstejn or Kutna Hora. If you do end up staying just in Prague know that tourists get scammed a lot, so watch out. Having said that though, it's an awesome place, full of history, culture and it has a crazy and cheap night out!"