Providenciales, Turks & Caicos

After my graduation from high school in June 2014, I was lucky enough to go on a one week trip to the beautiful island of Providenciales, Turks & Caicos with my mom, grandma, uncle, and boyfriend. I had just turned 18 earlier that month and it was a ton of fun and I couldn’t have asked for a better week! Here’s a brief rundown of the first half of the week.

We landed in Provo late in the morning, so we still had daylight to kill. As soon as we stepped out of the airport, I was in awe with the island. It was so dry and arid. There was very little vegetation and the soil was extremely dry and sandy. With our tiny rental car we headed straight for our condo at Ocean Club Resort. As we drove, I noticed that the area was sparsely populated and there was quite a bit of litter. Lots of the buildings were rundown and there were a ton of homeless “island dogs.”

Despite the negatives, the island was completely beautiful. The locals were friendly. The vegetation that was there was vibrant and tropical: think palm trees plentiful with coconuts and garden walls of bougainvillea. The sand was soft and the water clear. Soon after we got settled into where we would be staying for the week, we went out for a seafood dinner and piña coladas at Hemingway’s Restaurant. After a soft sunset in paradise, I couldn’t wait for the rest of the week.

Our second day in Provo was spent simply relaxing at the beach on Grace Bay Beach — nothing else. After all, it makes pretty much every “Top 10 Beaches in the World” list. It was pretty overcast but it didn’t rain and just look at that soft, soft sand:

We went out to eat that night at da Conch Shack. We had conch in different forms (cracked conch, conch salad, conch fritters, conch creole, curried conch, the conch combo) and rum punch. I thought it was all delicious, but I think I was the only one who actually really enjoyed it! Oh well… It was a pretty incredible place to eat dinner at least. The car in the picture below is the one we rented for the week, enabling us to drive around to the different beaches on the island. It was pretty tough to squeeze everyone into, but it did the job.

The next day consisted of catching millions of lizards along the pathways of the place we were staying, along with enjoying crystal clear turquoise water, and soft, white sand. The skies were looking much clearer than the day before and the cool water was perfect for both swimming and lying in.

For lunch the next day, we took that miniature little car out towards Chalk Sound to a restaurant called Las Brias where we all shared some yummy paella. We sat outside and had lunch with a view.

Chalk Sound was gorgeous. It made me just want to jump in and swim out to all the little islands. We drove up to a nice vantage point for taking pictures and just staring out at the views.

From there, we drove into a residential area to a point where we could access the beach at Taylor Bay which was something I really badly wanted to do while I had been researching Turks & Caicos back home. The water was crystal clear and we were the only ones on the beach. The great part about Taylor Bay is how shallow the water is for so long. You can keep walking yards and yards out and the water will still reach just below your knees. It was pretty incredible! There were cliffy rocks to jump off on the far end of the beach which was fun. But the main attraction here was just the simplicity of sand, water, and sky.

The grownups went for a drive at some point without us. No idea where this is but they got some nice shots of the tiny car:

My favorite part about Turks & Caicos was actually not the white sand beaches, but the amazing snorkeling we did at a variety of places during the week. More information and underwater photos about that coming in a post next week.

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