In The News
Provo Perfect
Source: Caribbean Travel + Life
With a unique combination of top-drawer chic and down-home charm, Providenciales is the star of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Tell a friend you're packing for Provo, and she’ll offer winter woollies for defense against the Utah chill. But my essentials for a Provo getaway include half-a-dozen swimsuits, designer shades for chic protection against a sun reflected off miles of ivory sand, slinky dresses for dinners in posh restaurants, and a prescription snorkel mask so I can fully appreciate the wonders of the bath-water-warm depths.
My Provo is Providenciales, a tropical tourist hub less than 90 minutes' flying time from Miami — and the only skis I’ll need there are water skis.
The Turks and Caicos Islands’ archipelago comprises 40 tiny outposts — only eight of which are inhabited — and on the most populous, 38-square-mile Providenciales (Provo to its friends), a decade-long push toward high-end, low-density tourism is revealed in a clutch of pricey hotels and restaurants. Both are juxtaposed against the backdrop of a placid island with neither a traffic light nor a fast-food franchise. While it bears no resemblance to suburban Salt Lake City, this Provo has surprisingly few of the familiar icons of its Caribbean neighbors: no rolling hills or lush foliage, no waving emerald fields of sugar cane, no bountiful, camera-ready fruit stalls embellishing curvaceous rural roads.
What the island has in spades is broad swaths of bone-white sand lapped by irresistible crystalline water that is a magnet for swimmers, snorkelers and divers. And visitors here soon discover, as I did, that as magnificent as the island’s beaches undoubtedly are, Provo’s charm extends far beyond the high-water mark.
