Czech founder turns Ibiza bar job into travel platform Likexpats

Tomáš Naňák left a small village in the Zlín region for a summer job in Ibiza — and ended up staying in Spain for ten years. That experience inspired him to create Likexpats, a platform that connects Czech and Slovak travellers with compatriots who have long lived abroad and know a place from the inside.

The story began in a fairly ordinary way: after failing to get a place on an Erasmus exchange, Naňák found a summer job in Ibiza selling tourists tickets to beach parties. A year later he went back as a waiter, barely speaking Spanish and picking up the language on the job, asking colleagues what simple words like “hielo” (ice) meant.

The seasonal side job gradually turned into an entire life in Spain: after Ibiza came Madrid, with work in five-star hotels, and then Mallorca, where he spent eight years. But the idea for his future business wasn't born there — it came during a trip to Indonesia.

In Bali, having settled in Kuta with no information about the area, Naňák nearly fell victim to thieves twice in his first two days. What saved the situation was a single message to someone who'd long lived on the island: in fifteen minutes that person told him everything he needed to know — where to go, where to avoid, which restaurants and beach clubs were worth visiting. Naňák later tested this principle from the other side — when friends came to visit him in Madrid or Mallorca, he gave them personal recommendations instead of guidebooks.

That's how the Instagram account My Mallorca Diary came about, followed by the Likexpats project itself — a service that connects Czech and Slovak tourists with compatriots who have long settled abroad. These people rent out accommodation, organise private tours or work as guides, helping visitors reach places and experiences that are hard to find on a standard tourist route.

“People feel freer when they can speak their native language and don't have to think about how to explain something in a foreign one. Our clients know these aren't the classic guide-reps who spend only four months in a place, but people who've lived there for years — some for more than fifteen years,” Naňák explains.

He considers careful selection of expats to be key to the business: the team studies their previous work and reviews, holds video calls, and personally tests some of the accommodation and tours. Today the Likexpats network has 69 active partners — 34 property owners and 35 local guides — across more than thirty destinations, including Bali, Thailand, Mexico, Madagascar, Réunion and the Dominican Republic.