About My Business
Every parent knows the weekend plan scramble: you want to get out of the house with your kids and go somewhere new, but figuring out where to go takes longer than the outing itself. You find a blog post that might be three years old. You cross-reference Google Maps. You check whether the café is actually pram-friendly, whether the playground is fenced, and whether there's a change table. By the time you've pieced it all together, the moment has passed, and you give up and go to the same place you always go. Roam with Kids exists to solve that problem. I'm Renata Wiles, an Auckland mum of two and the founder of Roam - a subscription app that helps New Zealand families find child-friendly places to go and things to do. Whether you're looking for a fenced playground, a café that genuinely welcomes prams and babies, a pram-friendly walking track, a rainy-day indoor activity, or a family event on this weekend - Roam has it, with filters and all the information you need, in one place. The idea was born during a five-month trip around Southeast Asia with my then-toddler daughter in 2022. Every evening once she was asleep, my partner and I would spend hours trying to find child-friendly activities for the next day - searching through outdated blogs, cross-referencing Google maps, and discovering that the places we'd found were an hour apart. When we came home to Auckland, I realised this problem exists everywhere. I started sharing our Auckland adventures on Instagram and TikTok. The content took off and I was having viral reels and my community started growing. Parents were messaging me constantly asking for recommendations in different parts of the city, and I realised my content was adding to the noise online, and the information needed a single home. So, I built a (very basic) Google Map of Auckland spots, and sold it for $19.95. I sold 500 copies in the first few months without any advertising, and I realised there was a real demand for this product. That map is what I now think of as the MVP for Roam with Kids. Roam launched as an app in April 2024 and hit #3 on the NZ App Store within 24 hours. Today, Roam covers all of New Zealand and has just expanded into Brisbane, Australia. We have had 10,300 paid subscribers try Roam since launching, a community of 80,000+ followers across social media, and partnerships with Auckland Council, Auckland Zoo, MOTAT, Bay of Plenty Tourism, Christchurch City Council, just to name a few. But Roam is more than a directory. We run events for mums, we've given back over $50,000 in community prizes and giveaways, and we regularly hear from parents whose lives have genuinely been made easier by being part of this community. Our mission is simple: to make parenthood a little more joyful, and a little more connected.
Why We Should Win The Peoples Choice Award
Roam with Kids is a New Zealand app helping families find child-friendly places to go - and this is why I think we deserve your vote for People's Choice. Building Roam has been the hardest and (one of the) most rewarding things I have ever done (my kids take the top spot there). I started it alone, built it while pregnant, launched it one week before my son was born, and spent my maternity leave making it into something I could be proud of. I am a mum first, and founder second. I don't have investors backing me, or a big team, or really any clue what I'm doing most days - but I genuinely believe parents deserve an easier way to find things to do with their kids, so they can spend more quality time together. Two years in, Roam has become something bigger than I imagined. Not because of a marketing budget (there isn't one), but because of our community. Every time you recommended Roam to a friend, shared a post, left a review, or came to an event - you helped build this. Our 80,000-strong community across social media exists entirely because of word of mouth and genuine loyalty. There is no way I can possibly sum up how grateful I am to all of you in a 500-word limit. The messages I receive from mums in this community are why I do what I do. A mum who said Roam gave her the confidence to leave the house with her newborn for the first time. Women who came to our events alone and left with friends. Parents who told me they feel like better mums and dads because they had somewhere to go that was enjoyable for them as well as the kids, and they weren't alone in their experiences. When I think about what I'm building, it's not just an app - it's a community that makes parenthood feel a little less hard and a lot more joyful. Winning this People's Choice Award would show that what I'm doing matters as much as I think it does. It would open doors to more partnerships, better discounts for our users, more events where parents can find real, in-person community, and more families finding Roam when they need it most. So, if Roam has ever saved you time or helped you discover somewhere new, or if you've been to one of our events and left feeling part of this community and a little less alone - I would love your vote. And if you've never heard of Roam before, we have a free trial - go and check it out, and let me know what you think! Our app users and our online community are the reason Roam exists, and I feel so grateful every day for them, regardless of the award outcome. Thank you for being on this journey with me. Renata Founder, Roam with Kids ''
