Trip to Paradise

Our Family Vacation to Turks and Caicos

Greetings! I have just returned from a week's vacation on the incredible islands known as Turks and Caicos. It was a phenomenal trip, providing me some much needed R and R. Let me share a bit about my trip with you.

A Little About Turks and Caicos

Turks and Caicos is a small chain of islands in the Carribean Sea.

Politically, they are affiliated in some way with Britian. The exact nature of the affiliation, i.e. colony, protectorate, territory, is not that clear to me, and truthfully, such distinctions are typically insignificant to those on vacation, at least in my experience. Culturally, TCI (as it's known) shares common language traits, transportation conventions (like driving on the wrong side of the road!), social customs etc. with Britian. Of course, it also has obvious infusions of African and Carribean culture as well. One of the larger islands in the group, Providenciales, is where my family & I stayed during our trip.

Where I Stayed

We spent our entire time at TCI on the island of Providenciales, at the Beaches Turks and Caicos resort.

The Beaches resort is an amazing place. In terms of layout, the impression I got, without looking at maps to verify, is that the resort footprint is roughly rectangular, with the Northern side of the rectangle consisting of a beautiful, white sand beach.

The resort is organized into sub-sections called villages, which consist of some number of guest rooms clustered around pools, restaurants and various entertainment areas. There are currently 4 villages in the resort: the French village, the Italian village, the Key West village and the Carribean village. My understanding is that the village at the North Eastern corner, Key West, was actually a separate resort that was, at some point, acquired by the owners of Beaches TCI and integrated into their existing villages. Our roooms were situated in the French village, wich was a large block of buildings forming the Southern perimeter of the resort. Generally, it exhibits French architectural patterns. Different sections of the French village buildings were named after cities in France (we stayed in an area named Lyon).

Despite staying in the French village, we spent the majority of our time in the Italian village, which abutted the beach at the central Northern part of the compound. Aside from being a kind of convenient, centralized hub at the heart of the resort, the Italian village had a very pleasing style to it. My wife liked their pool most among the many pools in the resort.

The Experience

For me, what set asside this resort from others I've been to was the outstanding array of restaurants and the pristine, beautiful grounds. Our cullinary exploits (and eating exploits they were!) ranged from Italian and French, to Asian, pub style and Island fare. As far as the resort landscape, Beaches TCI features an array of lavish tropical gardens, decorative plazas, and amazing pools and fountains. I think the fact that there are not one but 4 separate sub-resorts, each with unique dining options and structural touches, provides a very unique twist. Having a blend of different styles invites you to explore the entire resort, and keeps things interesting over the course of your stay.

As it turned out, we didn't devote too much time to ocean activities, mainly because our children are younger in age. Nevertheless, we did partake in some excursions, such as riding in a small sailboat and touring the nearby coral reefs via a glass bottom boat. I saw a number of other attractions that I would have loved to try, including kite boarding, kyaking and snorkeling. As I said, though, such kind of activities are not the most child friendly. Perhaps on our next visit!

Happy Us!

As you can see, we had a wonderful time relaxing, eating, swimming and soaking up the tropical sun! I highly recommend Turks and Caicos as a vacation destination, and the Beaches resort is a great place from which you can explore the islands.