LPA Pulse, like many parts of the city, is a construction site right now: something cool is being built
Here are some blueprints behind the construction work that's taking shape here at LPA Pulse, and a glimpse at the roadmap of priorities.
Phase 0 - The Foundations
These are the pre-launch foundations that LPA Pulse is getting built upon:
- Groundwork: securing the domain name ✅ , sorting out a working email inbox ✅, signing up to the Ghost CMS platform ✅ and setting up the basic layout for the site ✅, propagating essentials ✅ and creating social accounts ✅.
- Valuable Data: weather ✅, UV tracking ✅, weather warnings ✅, high tide and low tide times ✅, sunrise and sunset times ✅, moon phases ✅ - it's all you need to know to plan your day around the waves and sun ✅, like the indigenous Guanches who inhabited the island before the Spanish turned up with clocks and Bibles.
What I planned to be a "weather page" turned into something a little more comprehensive, and I'm still to add real-time feeds to it:
LPA Pulse
- Local News: the most interesting updates from the official sources of the island, and what it really means to you, along with some freshly squeezed goodness from the most entertaining, cool and authoritative social voices in the city, no clickbait, no AI slop, just the good stuff you need to know.
- Events Guide: what's happening in the world's best city this weekend? Sourced direct from the cafes, bars and restaurants with the most fun socials, as well as deep diving unofficial guides to the city, all put together and sent to your inbox each week. ¡Todo sin spam! Only solid confirmed events, no speculation like "Quevedo and Los Gofiones are playing tonight down Plaza de la Musica" - spoiler: it didn't happen.
- Tech Stacking: all of this has to be put together in a way that makes it easy for me to manage, easy for you to read, navigate and digest so it has a real benefit to you, then there's things like remote databases and all sorts of techie cloud wizardry kicking off behind the scenes to make it all run smoothly: I've been out of the tech game for a while, this is gonna be muy divertido / a lot of fun.
- Brand Uniformity: making sure everything glues together in a coherent well-branded manner, and making sure everything published here delivers extreme value to the reader.
This is the real-time, up-to-date, finger-on-the-pulse data collation and presentation that will be the backbone of everything on this site.
Phase 1 - Planting the Garden
I've been collecting seeds for an "hermoso jardín" of evergreen content, the kind of guide that might take a few days to write, but once published will still be accurate, viable and valuable to readers in years to come.
- Tourist Guides: for day-trippers to travellers and hostel hoppers, how do you fill six hours in the city, or a week, where's the cheapest place to stay for a little longer, and how much is that piggy in the window? Is that tourist bus worth it, and what to do with your ticket before you return to the boat?
- Spanish Language Guides: staying in a vil-lah, eating pie-el-lah, drinking Estrel-lah, dropping a hard H on hola or trailing S on gracias are all things that will reduce the flow and awe of your experience in Gran Canaria, get tips to sound more like a local and enjoy living more like one too.
- Las Palmas Street and City History: Who were Luis Morote, Sagasta and General Vives? What about Fernando Guanarteme: was he a traitor to his people, or did he save them from burning at the stake down the outskirts of Vegueta during the Spanish Inquisition? Want the map pins and more? Join the mailing list, it's free, it'll be good and totally spam free! ¡Es libre, bien, y todo sin spam!
Calle Fernando Guanarteme isn't just home to some great bars and eateries, it's an old part of the city with a unique identity and some locals are rightly concerned that the area's rich and vibrant history is being built over by modern apartment blocks and hotels.
I'll even try my best to explain the hostility to tourists, like "guiri go home" and "Digital Nomad you are not welcome here" which you might see sprayed around the city, really, if you were in their shoes, you too would carry the same sentiments. Understanding the unique nature of Las Palmas and navigating the streets with reverence and respect makes it better for both locals and us guiris.
The shirt basically says "until the sun no longer shines and the wind no longer blows, here we will be, here we plan to stay".
It was about as current a vibing way of saying "no" as possible, it's Quevedo merch that had just dropped that day and had been picked up at Altavista Mercado that morning. The lyrics are sung by Los Gofiones, a traditional male group originating from Gran Canaria: they're a national movement and living cultural legend of the island.
I hate buying clothes and I hate long lines when waiting for something, I loved this though, it was a real vibe and the popup store being like a traditional tienda was a great concept!
This garden of content on the site will be a curated collection of the stuff I find super cool or totally fascinating, like some of the old streets up La Isleta carry some real history, who were the good guys and what about the bad guys too? Why is Calle Jesús Ferrer Jimeno changing name, what's it changing to, and how does it affect you if you live on that street?
How the history of Las Palmas played out is paved beneath our feet when we walk the city, and it all started on June 24th / Junio 24 1478 when Juan Rejón sailed there, saw three palm trees and named it "Real de las Tres Palmas", no wonder the dude has a street named after him!
Some places there are truly sacred ground, the jardín of evergreen content will not just map the roads, but tell you who they're named after, and in some instances where you can go and see their tomb.
Ever wandered around the old cemetery / cementerio in Vegueta? It's amazing and one of the least touristy, non-guiri (gee-ree) things you can do! What's a guiri? Don't worry, there'll be a guide for that.
If you've been on Canteras you've seen the large auditorium at the bottom of the playa that's named in his honour, but the grave of Alfredo Kraus is much less visited, and is in the cementerio down in Vegueta. It makes a really cool afternoon adventure that's off the beaten tourist track.
Subscribe for the kinda stuff you don't get on regular travel guides or news sites.
Phase 2 - English-Speaking Networking and Directories of valuable contacts
Building up contacts on social networks and collating information about local businesses that are English-speaking, or English owned and operated, will form a helpful rolodex of contacts for both expats and digital nomads.
- The Pulse Directories: you wanna sip on the best coffees whilst meandering the calles of the city, or find the coolest museums to chill out in when it's too hot to be anywhere near Playa de Las Canteras? The Pulse Directories are your guide to the city, in your pocket, up-to-date and as hot as a freshly pulled cafecito, because if you're in Las Palmas doing the coffee trails, you'll find virtually all the best shots are pulled by Italianos.
- Directories of English-speaking Expat Businesses: for when you need help filling in Spanish legal or financial paperwork, a late night emergency electrician to come and fix a blown fusebox, or a plumber to fix dripping taps: essential services, all on one easy to navigate spot, to help you find solutions to the realities attached to "living the dream".
- The Digital Nomad Directory: if you're a node.js developer and need a graphic designer, or you're a social media marketer and need a coder to bridge two web services, the Digital Nomad directory aims to help you find the right people, with the right skills without having to trawl through endless social media posts of people seeking bar work in Playa del Inglés.
Phase 3 - Tending the Garden
This is the bit where I'm getting things all working really nicely, not just for me as a site administrator, and volunteer tour guide to Las Palmas, but for you as a user, no matter who you are: from someone wanting to visit the city for a few hours when their ship is docked, through to those hitting the city for a week and are searching out the best places to dine each night when there.
Here's a couple of starter suggestions, or should I say sugerencias?
admin
DivinaPandora
This fine tuning stage will hopefully get the engine firing on all cylinders and will lead to being able to execute the next steps in this wild vision that came to me one night whilst sitting on a rooftop terrace, overlooking Calle Luis Morote. The thing is it's not just a vision, it's a sound too...
Phase 3 rinses, gets fine tuned and repeats till it has made Phase 4 manifest as an actual reality, and not just a far off dream, like it is right now.
Phase 4 - Harvest
I'm not going to slap Google AdSense all over the site and take up a third of your screen with junk, nor am I going to throw in a truckload of Amazon affiliate links in the hope of taking a cut from your spend, that's low hanging fruit and if you've ever seen the palm trees over there when they're fruiting, you'll know those things are pretty high up!
Monetisation, it's not the aim, it's not the be all and end all, but to succeed with long term plans and visions, sadly it's a necessity that needs to be done right, and till I know what kind of advertising and sponsorship partnerships are really going to serve you best, it's staying ad free. Even then, when ads do come, they'll be relevant and not rammed down your throat, if it doesn't benefit you, it's not going on the site, or in the newsletter.
Phase 5 - The Pulse of Las Palmas
Inspired by conversations in the city about "having a finger on the pulse of things around here" and partly inspired by Pulse FM, the old commercial radio station for Sheffield, "The Pulse of Las Palmas" or "LPA Pulse" as it's found online and on socials, aims to bring a great soundtrack to your life in Las Palmas!
Imagine everything you've come to expect from the site, that you know you can trust, but instead of being a treat for your eyes to read, it's a treat for your ears to listen to through streaming services and smart speakers.
My background is radio, I first started thinking about setting up an English-speaking radio station in Las Palmas back in 2016 when an old boss from my radio days came over, but we ended up starting a DAB digital radio station back in England instead!
Once all the previous points are ticked off, traffic is finding its way to the site organically, and the revenue is from solid enough sources that I know the bills are getting paid on time, it'll be safe to get the music royalty licences I need to start a streaming radio service.
Las Palmas is like home to me, and radio is the love of my career.
2 + 2 = ¡cuatro!
The data engine behind LPA Pulse is everything a radio station needs, I just need to add music, programming and presenters that aren't the same old pre-recorded voices telling you the date and time, simply because it's the cheapest and easiest way to fill a schedule.
It's not gonna sound like traditional English-speaking radio stations abroad, don't expect the same tired rotations of Deacon Blue and Rick Astley, Rihanna and Ed Sheeran, that really ain't the kinda vibe you want in your ears when the ocean is turquoise, the crests of waves are crisp white, and the sun is spanking your face off along Paseo de Las Canteras.
Think of the hot hits you know and love, it'll be the soundtrack to your perpetual summer, a sound that's loaded with warm, cool and funky beats, international best sellers, Spanish chart toppers, and local vibes from the island's banging music scene.
These things take time. Then when you can press a play button and tune in, the next part of the adventure is underway.
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