Kevin and Janetta from Travel Guides on the one thing viewers don't know about the show.

From the little-travel-show-that-could to one of the biggest ratings success stories on TV today, Travel Guides shows little sign of falling out of favour amongst its diehard fans.

And I am one of them. Since making its debut back in 2017, Travel Guides has quickly gone from being a cult favourite watch to a fully-fledged TV phenomenon.

A big part of the show's appeal is its selection of lovable guides who invite viewers to watch them on holidays every season.

OG guides Kevin and Janetta have just filmed their tenth season of Travel Guides, while Matt and Brett joined the show in 2021 and quickly became fan favourites.

Watch Kevin and Janetta on Travel Guides. Post continues after video.

As the show continues to get better every season, longtime viewers are increasingly wondering exactly how the show works and what goes on behind the scenes.

Lucky for you, I sat down with Kevin, Janetta, Matt and Brett to ask every question I could think of.

Do all the Travel Guides go away at the same time?

Kevin and Janetta confirmed that the entire crew goes on the same holiday.

"We all go at the same time with the cast and crew, there's probably about 35 of us, but we all keep to ourselves," Kevin said.

That said, Janetta added, they do mix occasionally with different Travel Guides groups, too. "We pretty much only spend time with each other when we're flying or sometimes if we're waiting around to film or something like that — it's just like one family, a very big family."

Matt and Brett also confirmed this was the case.

"We all stay at the same place, but we all have like a different plan for the day, so we all head off in different directions," Brett said.

Brett and Matt enjoy New York City. Image: Instagram/@matt.and.brett.

"We usually see each other at breakfast time, and sometimes we even cross over and have lunch together — it's really good to catch up with the other groups and find out how they're going.

"But we're not allowed to talk about what we've been doing when we talk to them, so everything stays a surprise for everyone."

How long do they stay at each destination?

This depends on the trip. "Anywhere between seven and 10 days, it depends," Kevin shared.

"However, the last couple of years, Nine has been running 90-minute episodes," added Janetta.

"So, where we normally take about eight days to shoot something, it might be 10 days. Then sometimes we might do back-to-back. Once, we went to India, then flew straight to Paris, and last year we did Switzerland and went straight on to Spain and Portugal."

Kevin and Janetta making Portegese tarts. Image: Instagram/@jetandkevin.

Sometimes the Travel Guides are constantly moving between different hotels in the same location.

"When we went to New York, we had 10 days in New York and we stayed 10 days in the same hotel," Brett said.

"But with the Spain and Portugal one, it was like a different hotel every night. Every trip has a different set of challenges. Sometimes you get to unpack and put your clothes in the hanger of the wardrobe."

"And sometimes you get really good at just skimming off the top of your luggage for a couple of days," added Matt.

"You have to look at yesterday's photos to make sure you're not wearing the same clothes twice."

Do they know where they're going before they get there?

Nope! Janetta teased there's 'one thing' viewers don't realise about filming. "We don't know where we're going until we actually get to the airport," Janetta said.

"We get a packing list and a temperature guide."

"It's very discombobulating! We could end up in Adelaide or Amsterdam," Kevin added.

How do they select whether one group gets fancier flights, accommodation and activities than the others?

Kevin and Janetta reckon they all get similar treatment.

"Pretty much we all do the same things, but there is between 400 and 500 hours of footage for a 43-minute show — a lot of stuff doesn't make the cut."

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A post shared by Kevin Moloney & Janetta Stones (@jetandkevin)

Brett thinks that sometimes the style of vacation is curated for a given group.

"Sometimes I think they tailor it for who they think is going to enjoy that kind of holiday," Brett said. "And sometimes they deliberately do it to take you out of your comfort zone and give you an experience that you probably weren't expecting."

Do they get to choose what they do on the holidays?

Nope! The Travel Guides have to let Nine's producers take the wheel.

"We have no say in it at all. We don't even know what we're doing. We have a cast coordinator and he or she sends us an email the night before and says, 'Okay, we're doing activewear — not our favourite — and be at reception at 8 o'clock, and then we know what we're doing," Janetta said.

"We could be jumping out of a plane or dining at Vue de monde in Melbourne. The activities are so diverse, but we don't know until we get there," Kevin added.

But the activities are not mandatory. "We don't have to do anything if we don't want to, but we do say on camera why we're not doing it," Janetta clarified.

Matt and Brett have started to lean into the mystery of what's around the corner.

Matt and Brett sip down cocktail in the pool while in New Zealand. Image: Instagram/@matt.and.brett.

"We find out what we're doing as we're doing it," Matt said. "It's that spontaneity that we really love about the show. There are lots of things we've done because we've only had two minutes to think about it."

"We've said yes to lots of things we haven't thought about," laughed Brett.

"If they had asked us the day before, we'd have said 'No way!' but because you don't get an opportunity to overthink it, then you do it."

What was their worst moment on the show?

Kevin and Janetta agree there's one style of holiday they can never get around.

"We don't like camping. In fact, we have a hierarchy of C words we dislike, and it starts with camping, cabins, caravans, cask wine, and children on holidays [laughs]," Kevin said.

"Probably my worst experience was in Season 1," Janetta said. "We were driving this camper van around WA, and then we had to spend a night on Yarra Beach, which is this desolate beach way down south."

"That night it decided to blow a gale, so all of the stuff we put outside the camper van ended up blowing away to South Africa," Kevin continued.

Janetta said the real struggle came when they had to prepare dinner.

"We had fish we were supposed to cook, but we couldn't light a fire. For dinner that night — and I'm not sure if I'm proud of this or not — but we had a block of Cadbury's Dairy Milk and a bottle of gin." For Matt, he's had to confront some of his biggest fears.

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"For me, it's really anything at height or to do with snakes or rats. And they managed to find all of those things for us," he joked.

Do the Travel Guides get paid to go on holiday?

"We get an allowance. We get a daily allowance," Kevin said. "It's worth our while to go," added Janetta.

Brett and Matt made it clear that the kind of luxurious vacations they've enjoyed on the show would have been outside of their budget otherwise.

"We get a daily allowance, but really the holidays are something that we simply wouldn't be able to afford," said Matt.

Brett echoed this sentiment. "If we were able to add up all the experiences, all the flights and accommodation that we've been able to experience — it's like winning the lotto, really," he said.

"We've had a lifetime's worth of holidays every season, and this will be our sixth season. We do realise how lucky we are, and we're very, very grateful for that."

Do they have regular jobs too?

"It's our job now, really, isn't it?" Janetta said as Kevin nodded in agreement.

"We've been retired for about 10 years," Kevin said.

"We're retired for six months of the year and the other six months of the year we're on Travel Guides," added Janetta.

Janetta and Kevin at the TV Week Logie Awards. Image: Instagram/@jetandkevin.

For Matt and Brett, they have 'normie' jobs when they're not galavanting across the world.

"I'm a primary school teacher, so I go back to work and usually the first thing they do is give me playground duty, and that's a real reality check," joked Brett.

"I catch up with the other staff, and then you're back into the swing of things, and you live that life for a while, and then before you know it, it's Travel Guides time again!"

"We live a very normal life," said Matt. "In our home life, people would probably say it's quite boring… I suppose, except we don't have kids, that's the bonus."

"It's really good to have work to go back to — to keep us back in the real world," Brett noted. "Otherwise, you could just feel like you're on holidays all the time, and you would forget how special and how much of a privilege it is to be able to travel."

How did they get their job on Travel Guides?

When they first got the gig, Kevin and Janetta simply applied for the show after seeing it advertised.

"This came about just after we'd retired," Janetta said. "It [the ad] said, 'If you like travel and you can give up three months next year'… we thought it was like Getaway or something."

"We had no idea what we were in for," joked Kevin. "We had no idea that it was going to have the life and the legs that it has. We thought, 'OK, one season maybe?'"

And the rest is history!

Feature image: Instagram/@matt.and.brett/@jetandkevin.