Out In The Palms is an informal group of gay staff members and customers of Thousand Palms Resort located in Central Florida near The Villages. 

Thousand Palms Resort Offers:

• Patio Guesthouses – private one and two bedroom furnished rentals for weekend, weekly or monthly vacations.  Each includes a private bath, efficiency kitchen, enclosed patio and air conditioning.
• Extra Large RV Sites – including both sunny pull-throughs and shady back in sites.  All include full hook ups with 50 amp electric and concrete patios.  Cable TV and WiFi available on many of the sites.
• Wooded Tenting Sites – all with on site water and electric.
• Heated Outdoor Swimming Pool
• Large Clubhouse Facility with WiFi
• Withlacoochee River access for kayaks, canoes and fishing
• Golfing  on our own “par 1.5” course
• 20 Acres of nature trails
• Scheduled recreational and social activities

For reservations and information please contact the resort directly:

• On the Web:   www.ThousandPalmsResort.com
• By Phone:   352-748-2237
• By Email:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Drop By:  6545 West SR 44, Rutland, Florida  33538 (7 miles East of I-75 at the Wildwood Exit)

Thousand Palms Resort  has recently been criticized on internet forums for not being gay friendly – we welcome gay and lesbian visitors and always have.  But since there doesn’t seem to be much agreement on what it means to be a “gay friendly”  or “gay welcoming” business, we hope to use this letter to at least distinguish the facts from the hyperbole.

Thousand Palms Resort is now and has always been a mainstream vacation resort whose customers are primarily straight retirees and traditional families.  We have never tried to mislead anyone about this.  It has always been our business commitment and our personal practice to be welcoming to gay and lesbian people.   By describing Thousand Palms as gay friendly and welcoming we intend that gay and lesbian people who want to vacation in a mainstream or straight environment can be confident  that they will be treated with the same respect shown to our mainstream guests.

We have a number of gay and lesbian visitors who enjoy our mainstream environment as an alternative to the exclusively gay resorts.   Because some of the owners, some of the staff and some of our customers are gay and lesbian people, an informal GLBT social group has formed that we call Out in the Palms which through its web site and other activities, invited gay and lesbian people to vacation here with us.

The suggestions that discrimination or mistreatment of gay people has taken place at Thousand Palms is untrue and in almost every case is being made by people who have never met or visited us.  No gay person has ever been criticized or asked to leave for being or acting gay.   We only ask that everyone’s public behavior is respectful to others.  The intimacies of public displays of affection and same gender couple dancing is not appropriate in most public settings including the public settings at Thousand Palms.

We know that gay and lesbian people have many choices about where to spend their vacation time and while we would appreciate your support of this vacation business, we understand that many prefer businesses that serve gay and lesbian people exclusively and in private membership settings.  But for those who want to enjoy a mainstream camping resort experience, we would love to have you spend time with us at Thousand Palms and know we can show you a very nice time here.