littlepalmsLittle Palms started the way most family outings start: standing in a parking lot at 11am, kid in the back seat, phone in hand, trying to figure out if the playground we just drove twenty minutes to reach had any shade at all. (It did not.)
I'm a designer and a dad, newly settled in South Florida with a young family. When we moved here, I did what every parent does — I googled. And Google told me parks existed. It never told me whether the play area was fenced, whether there was a changing table in the men's restroom, whether a stroller could survive the paths, or whether the whole plan would collapse at the 2pm thunderstorm. So I started keeping notes. The notes became a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet became this.
26 of the 46 spots here have been visited and rated in person by a real parent — most of them by my own family, on our own weekends. The rest are researched from the venue's own information and say so on the card, marked “field visit coming” until someone has actually been. We rate the things that decide whether a day out works: shade, fencing, restrooms and changing tables, stroller access, age fit, rainy-day viability, and ways to save at the gate. Each listing shows when it was last verified, and when something changes, parents like you send a field report and we update it.
Little Palms is a small, local, deliberately independent guide for Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade families. It's free to use and always will be. The occasional featured spot from a local business — always clearly labeled — and support from parents keep it running. There are no ads chasing you around the internet, no tracking, and no plans for either.
A business can pay to appear in the featured slot at the top of the guide. When one has, the card says Sponsored. When the pick is ours, it says Chosen by us — not sponsored. It is never ambiguous, and it is never a surprise.
Money does not buy a rating, a place in the results, a match on a filter, or the removal of something we found. If a sponsored spot has no shade, its card says it has no shade. If its hours are unconfirmed, its card says that too. The ratings are the only reason this guide is worth reading, so they are the one thing that is not for sale.
On purpose, and for good. There is no Little Palms app and there won't be one. The last thing any parent needs is another thing on their phone wanting updates and notifications. A website works everywhere — the laptop while you're planning Saturday, the phone in the parking lot when the plan falls apart — with one version to keep right instead of three.
It's also what keeps this free. Going through the app stores means their fees, their review queues, their rules about what a listing may say, and the constant pull toward a subscription to pay for all of it. None of that would make the guide better at telling you whether a playground is fenced. Small is deliberate — it's the reason this can exist at all.
You can save this website to your phone's home screen. It gets its own icon and opens straight to the guide — still the same website, with nothing to download or update:
iPhone or iPad: tap the Share button in Safari, scroll down, tap Add to Home Screen.
Android: tap the ⋮ menu in Chrome, then Add to Home screen.
Because a guide is only worth the trust you can put in it. This one is kept by a parent who lives here and goes to these places, who writes down what was actually there — including the times we have not been yet, and the hours nobody has confirmed. You should know which parts are checked and which are not, and that is the whole promise.
Questions, ideas, or just want to say hi? hello@golittlepalms.com — made with love in Fort Lauderdale.