Two up front things before I jump in:
1. This was easily one of our favorite vacation destinations ever!
2. Along with that… This is one of the most expensive places we’ve traveled! We’ll get into that in the post. We traveled there in March and June of 2015.
There are a few different places you can stay when traveling to the Turks. We chose to fly into Providenciales and stay on Grace Bay Beach which is the most beautiful beach we’ve spent time at. It reminds me a lot of Grand Cayman with the swimming pool-like crystal waters that are calm with little, to no waves. However, Turks is such a small group of islands that everything has to be shipped in. This causes things to be quite a bit higher in price. Traveling to the Turks was a true island experience. The people are great, the local food is so good, and the vibe of the island is perfect for unplugging and spending great quality time at the beach.
Amy and I first traveled to the Turks for our anniversary in March for a few nights. We loved it so much that we immediately decided we had to take Joelle back for Summer vacation (Israel was not here yet). Here are a few tips if you’re ever lucky enough to make this trip:
1. Shop flights often – We are big American Airlines people because their hub is right here in Dallas and you can get just about anywhere in the world from DFW on American. However, I almost always check Google flights first, just to make sure I’m not missing out on a discount fare somewhere else. Shopping flights is just like shopping for clothes or anything else: check back a few times, do your research, and you’ll increase your chances of finding discounts.
If you’ll search for your airport codes in Google (i.e. – DFW to PLS), Google flights will come up first and it will offer you dates, prices, and almost any flight and carrier for your route. That’s the first place I always start when searching for flights.
We were actually lucky enough to book first class seats with American awards miles for one of our trips so the tickets were about $20! It definitely pays to fly with the same carrier every time you can. The flight to Turks can be high so start looking at least 6 months out and check back often!
2. Stay on Grace Bay – It will cost you a bit more to stay directly on the beach. If you’re going to spend the money to travel to Turks, shop the deals and find a place on the ocean. There are not a ton of things to do outside of the water in Providenciales so make sure your hotel/condo is convenient for the water.
One of the things we LOVED about Grace Bay is it had one of the best snorkeling reefs we have seen about 10 yards off of the beach which means free snorkeling anytime you want. I saw crazy amounts of fish, a baby sea turtle, sting ray, barracuda, octopus, and about a 5-6ft reef shark. If that scares you, there are tons of other people in the water. I always tell Amy, the more people in the water, the lower your chance of dying is….Amy is still terrified of sharks after all of our trips (if she can snorkel, I promise you can too).
On our first trip we stayed at Windsong Resort and had a blast. This is a small hotel RIGHT on the beach, and VERY close to the snorkeling. The only downside to staying in a hotel is that you have to eat out every meal because there is no kitchen. Condos are not cheap in Turks so Windsong may be the best place for you….especially if you aren’t interested in doing your own meals anyways. They do have a restaurant on site that was pretty good. Like any hotel, their rates can fluctuate a lot! I’ve seen it in the 200’s per night, and I’ve seen Spring Break get up close to 600 so shop that price!
3. Go out with Caicos Dream Tours – We did the full day tour and it was one of the best tours we’ve done as far as snorkeling goes! We saw dolphins, lobster, tons of fish, a 7ft nurse shark (let’s not talk about Amy pushing Joelle and me towards it while she fled for her life in the water), and went hunting for conch shells. We also saw HUGE iguanas, and the captain of the boat taught Joelle how to open up a conch, get the meat out, and then he cooked us up an AWESOME lunch on the beach before we headed back for the evening.
4. Try fried conch – You’ll find this, in season, at a lot of the Caribbean islands (if not all of them). Conch is a really interesting creature. If you learn how to look for them you’ll likely find them in the water nearly every time you swim out a little way. Joelle and I found so many once we knew what to look for. In the Caribbean they love to fry these creatures up, and I love to eat them up! They’ll usually put a spicy dip on the plate with them, and I’ve yet to have it cooked in a way I don’t like. It reminds me a lot of fried calamari, but it’s not exactly like that at all.
You have to give it a try. It’s definitely one of those ‘local’ dishes that we enjoyed diving into. On the islands it’s not as easy to find local dishes because tourists have come in and want to eat their own comfort food. While it’s always good, something feels weird about eating Italian noodles on a beach in the Caribbean! Fried conch is usually pretty cheap, and most of the locals I’ve met LOVE it! Side note – on our first trip it was lobster season. If you know me, I about turned into a lobster.
Did you know that on the night lobster season begins, local families head out to sea in small boats, dive down (without gear) into the reef, and grab lobsters with their hands? I had a really good time imagining 10-15 people in a small boat heading out to the reef in the middle of the night to lobster hunt with their hands! It’s a tradition…and when lobster season begins, IT’S ON! The lobster here is as fresh as it gets, and it is amazing!
5. Pack your suitcase FULL of ALL THE THINGS! You don’t want to get stuck buying things at the island price. Pack your sunscreen, aloe vera, snack foods, pool toys, medicines, and ANY necessity you might possibly need. When we took Joelle back we packed our suitcases as full as we could. We even packed breakfast food. It would be cheaper to pay for an extra bag, I promise!
We can’t wait to get back to Grace Bay soon! Joelle, to this day, talks about Turks and Caicos all the time. It was one of our favorites of all time, and we can’t wait to introduce Israel to all of its beauty. We are an ocean-loving family, and hope to soon say we’ve all dipped out toes in every ocean this beautiful planet has to offer. You might be able to tell that we are an ‘experience’ family! There are few things you can leave your children once this life is over. A legacy of living for Christ is at the top of our list. We certainly want to leave them some things that will help set them, and their future, up for success. But the experiences they have with Mama and Papa are things they will never lose. So enjoy the time you have with the people you have, and make the most of every experience! You never know when that last one may come!
