I’ll be in West Palm Beach for work and have one free weekend afternoon (3-4 hrs max). Staying close to the airport (off of Executive Center Drive). What should I explore/check out?
The only thing I’ve heard of there is City Place – which just sounds like an outdoor mall to me. I’m from the northeast, so honestly anything outdoors where I can see palm trees is probably fine. Bonus points if there’s takeout restaurants and a grocery store where I can stop on the way back to the hotel in the evening to grab dinner/snacks.
How far am I from the beach? Also, can you comment of the relative security of the area near the hotel and City Place – is it safe to walk around? Or take a car to a particular beach? (Single female traveling alone so I don’t want to be out walking around if it isn’t a secure, popular area.) I’d love to see the beach, but am looking for more of a walk around/downtown place – i.e. if I can stop at the beach for 30 min on my way someplace else, that’s optimal but I don’t know if that’s realistic.
Figured I’d take a shot that someone on CC is from West Palm or has spent time there.
West Palm Beach itself doesn’t have beaches. It’s on the mainland, separated from the ocean by a lagoon and barrier island. The barrier island is occupied by the City of Palm Beach which has beautiful public beaches along its entire length, but it’s an extremely wealthy area and they don’t want riff-raff like you and me partaking of their beaches so they make it almost impossible to park nearby. For beaches your best bets are John D. MacArthur Beach State Park, just north of West Palm (you’ll need a car), or Lake Worth Beach, a beautiful public beach in the city of Lake Worth just immediately south of Palm Beach and on the same barrier island. (you’ll need a car to get there, too).
City Place is pleasant enough but as you say it’s just an outdoor shopping mall, albeit with several nice eateries. Downtown West Palm isn’t much, in my book; there are a few streets that are packed with popular eating and drinking establishments but it’s not that great a walking city and some of the areas on the fringe of downtown become pretty seedy pretty fast. I’d suggest getting a car, maybe stopping at City Place for a look around; it has a kind of faux downtown feel, which has probably helped to suck the blood out of the real downtown. Then cross the Okeechobee Blvd. bridge into Palm Beach, where it becomes Royal Palm Way, lined with some truly magnificent royal palms (not a native species, by the way). Palm Beach is pretty impressive with its mansions and upscale shops, and very safe walking. Worth Avenue, a few blocks south of Royal Palm, has the highest concentration of upscale shopping, but you’ll also find shops and restaurants tucked into the surrounding streets. Then get back in your car and drive down South Ocean Blvd, with some gorgeous ocean views and equally magnificent oceanfront mansions. Take that all the way to Lake Worth and you’ll be at Lake Worth Beach. Downtown Lake Worth is also quite walkable and pleasant, with a low-key, funky, artsy feel and some decent restaurants as well, clearly less affluent than Palm Beach but friendly and approachable. MacArthur State Park is a better bet if you want to see more of natural Florida, but it sounds like that’s not what you’re looking for.
I agree with Pizzagirl that the Norton Museum in West Palm is quite pleasant, though not big. West Palm also has a charming little zoo where we spent many happy hours with our young kids while visiting grandparents in Lake Worth. The other big attraction in the area is the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, a 55-room Beaux Arts mansion built by oil and railroad magnate Henry Flagler for his third wife. Flagler was one of the founders of Standard Oil–he lent John D. Rockefeller $100,000 to get the business started on condition that Flagler was made a partner–and later built and controlled the railroads that opened up Palm Beach and later Miami to development. Worth seeing if you’re into that sort of thing.