Exploring Providenciales, Turks & Caicos: Beaches, Food, Culture

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Providenciales, the most populous island in Turks and Caicos, seemed like the ideal destination for my goal: to do nothing but relax.

Even before I arrived, I could envision the perfect trip. I would stroll stretches of the famous three-mile-long Grace Bay Beach, the shining highlight of Provo (as the locals call Providenciales). In 2022, Grace Bay was voted the No. 1 beach in the world at Tripadvisor. The milk-white powdery sands and unblemished beryl-blue water seem to go on forever, with waves breaking a quarter-mile out on a reef and five-star resorts lining the shore.

In my mind, I would find a padded lounge chair shaded by an umbrella. Maybe I’d rise now and then to soak in the cooling sea. I would read, nap, swim, repeat. With a touch more ambition, I might even raise my arm to flag a server who would bring me a rum punch, virtually unbidden. I would, in effect, do nothing.

Or so I thought.

Lay of the Land: Turks and Caicos

After I arrived, I spoke to several Turks Islanders (also known as Belongers) who mistakenly believed they lived in the Caribbean. They don’t.

The semi-autonomous British Overseas Territory has more than 100 named islands and small cays, of which only nine are inhabited. They lie to the southeast of the Bahamas and are technically in the Atlantic Ocean, though you could be forgiven for thinking the subtropical climate, palm trees, and clear turquoise waters placed you in the nearby Caribbean.

All international flights arrive in Provo, the center of the territory’s luxe lifestyle. For restaurants, top resorts, water sports, and convenience, Provo is where you want to be. And in Provo, you want to be on Grace Bay.

Settling into Home Base in Provo

I checked into the recently renovated Alexandra Resort, a manageable-size, 160-room, all-inclusive property on Grace Bay, with the sedate Palms Turks and Caicos on one side and the massive Beaches resort on the other. With seven restaurants, a gorgeous length of sand, a freeform pool, and multiple bars, the all-inclusive Alexandra led me to believe I wouldn’t need to think about or do anything.

Guests are able to enjoy the restaurants, bars, and water sports at the Alexandra’s sister all-inclusive resort, Blue Haven, on Provo’s eastern end. “Stay at one, play at two” is their slogan. Sounds good. But I saw trouble on the horizon.

How People Eat in Provo

It would be a mistake to not eat seafood in Provo. As a fishery, Turks and Caicos is hugely productive, ranking third in GDP behind tourism and banking. Spiny lobster, Queen conch, tuna, wahoo, dorado, and grouper are mainstays and provide a significant part of the islands’ income (and menu items).

My resort’s breakfast buffet, for example, proffered fresh snapper and fish stew next to the waffles and scrambled eggs. Guests immersed themselves in bouillabaisse and grilled scallops at the Fish Deck for dinner. My first night, I dived into the lobster surf and turf at the Alexandra’s open-air main restaurant, Black Rock Grill, where many entrees are served on hot stones.

None of that is to say that fish is the only dish. In the Grace Bay downtown district of Provo, within walking or biking distance of many of the area’s five-star resorts, you’ll find fajitas at Skull Rock Cantina, pizza and pasta at Bella Luna, and smash burgers and classic poutine at the super-casual food-truck-style Coco Van Airstream Lounge, among dozens of other eateries.

While in downtown Grace Bay, people often visit two adjacent shopping malls, Saltmills Plaza and Regent Village, for local art, regional food and drink to carry home, duty-free stores, and island souvenirs.

One of the more unusual businesses in Grace Bay is Potcake Place, a canine rescue shelter in Saltmills Plaza that adopts out 100 percent of its dogs. Visitors can stop by the shelter to learn more about the work done there and, if they wish, take a puppy for a walk (leash provided) and show the critter some of the love and care it needs to thrive.

A Mangrove Tour in a Divorce Kayak

One of my traveling partners was a young woman, Madie, who had a natural ability at kayaking. Thank goodness she was adept, because we were placed in one of the two-person boats often called “divorce kayaks.” The synchronicity of paddling, the unspoken understanding of the direction in which you’re both headed, the speed you travel, and the attention you pay to everything around you all combine to make the two people in the kayak hate one another by the end of the journey.

Fortunately, Madie was a dream.

The beach at Blue Haven resort, where we awkwardly clambered into our kayaks, was on the Leeward Going Through Channel. Across the channel was Mangrove Cay. Our nine double-kayak entourage was towed across the channel by a Jet Ski, at which point we were cut loose to explore.

Green sea turtles swam beneath our clear-hulled kayaks and came up for air within inches of our rails. Our guide chased a lemon shark through the shallow, gin-clear mangrove waters so that it swam directly below us. The guide found an “inside-out” jellyfish and challenged us to guess what in the heck it was. And then there was the ugly-as-sin conch, its protuberance as disturbing as a geoduck’s.

We were fortunate to have access to the water-sports center at Blue Haven, with its kayaks, paddleboards, and snorkel gear. Most resorts in Provo either offer their own activities or will book them for their guests through independent providers.

Deep in the mangroves, I felt that we were a million miles from anywhere—except that there were $20 million beachfront mansions within conch-throwing distance of our kayaks.

My goal of doing nothing seemed to be receding quickly.

Beer Here

When there is only one of something in your vacation destination, your sense of noblesse oblige is activated: You kinda have to go see it.

So I ended up at Turk’s Head Brewery—purely from a sense of charity, helpfulness, and cultural understanding.

We’ve all been to small local breweries on our travels. But I was especially impressed by Turk’s Head, not least of all because it is the only brewery in the islands. You want a beer at your resort, downtown restaurant, or grab-and-go cold case at the convenience store, it’s likely coming from Turk’s Head.

Our guide, Mark, said the facility started making beer 24 years ago. “We’ve been the go-to brewery ever since,” he said.

Most visitors will need to drive or take a taxi to get to the brewery, which is halfway between Grace Bay and the western “downtown” closer to the airport. Taking a car service is a good idea for another reason: By the time we were done sampling the 10 beers on the menu (Down-Da-Road IPA was my favorite), I was listing to starboard.

Junkanoo in Provi

Junkanoo is music. It’s a dance. It’s a colorful-costume celebration of life. And it is the weirdest thing you ever saw.

Junkanoo can be traced to the Bahamas some 400 years ago, and was supposedly named for John Canoe, an 18th-century Akan warrior from Ghana. The origins of the name sound plausible, but who knows?

There should be no surprise that Junkanoo migrated southeast of the Bahamas to the Turks, considering that they both compose the almost seamless Lucayan Archipelago.

The Junkanoo performances are usually held in the form of a parade, a procession, with dozens of drummers, cowbellists, and maraca-players wearing everything from elaborate headgear and intricate dresses to simple lime-green or lemon-yellow tatterdemalion livery. I can still feel the percussion in the hollow of my chest, even days later. Behind them are a few brass-band players, mainly trumpets, trombones, and tubas. Then come the whistle-blowers, their high-pitched tweets underscoring the drumbeats. The rhythm is fast, the melody is nil, the dancing is hypnotic.

What struck me more than anything was the rapture in the eyes of the players and dancers. They weren’t performing; they were striving for…for something. Their eyes were almost unseeing. They seemed to inhabit another realm of existence. They stared into the void, even as their hands beat to the unceasing rhythms.

Thursday-Night Fish Fry

I saw my first Junkanoo procession at Blue Haven, just before ordering a lamb loin with mustard herb crust at the main restaurant, Fire and Ice. The next evening, I went to the weekly Thursday-night fish fry, held just a 10-minute walk from the Alexandra, in a neighborhood called the Bight, one of Provo’s three original villages. There I would encounter the Junkanoo players again.

The crowd at the outdoor fish fry mainly comprised locals, and they looked good. The women were in their finest sexy outfits, the men acted too-cool-for-school, and the numerous children who ran around the spacious grounds were joyful but respectful. What I feared would be a tourist trap turned out to be a revered local tradition.

The fish-fry field, Stubbs Diamond Plaza, held dozens of craft sellers in tented booths offering handmade jewelry, clothing, souvenirs, paintings, and more. The remaining booths sheltered food vendors, which was perfect: The hour was growing late and I was starving.

I stood in line for 20 minutes in front of a food tent called Mookie’s to get the vendor’s celebrated cracked conch (pounded, battered, and fried). Mookie’s modus operandi reminded me of the Soup Nazi episode in Seinfeld: Customers were expected to line up, know what main course they wanted and which side dishes, order promptly once they reached the head of the queue, then stand obediently to the side to await their meal. (In my case, I ordered “fry rice” and a half-ear of corn on the cob to coddle either side of my cracked conch.) No messing about; no hemming, hawing, or asking for a second look at the menu. Just order, pay, and get out of the way.

I plowed into my meal after returning to the picnic bench that my small group had commandeered. The food was not too bad—a little dry, but made acceptable thanks to a bottle of Turk’s Head I-Soon-Reach Lager. But the music, the pretty people, and the warm night combined to transform my just-OK crack conch into something splendid. And the Junkanoo band blew the minds of everyone in attendance as they pounded, whistled, squawked, and boogalooed through the fish-fry grounds.

Advice: Admission is free to the fish fry. You just pay for your food and drinks. The event lasts until around 9:30, but if you want a table, get there by six. Arrive any later and you won’t have a place to sit. Arriving any earlier, according to my kayak guide on the mangrove tour, “is really just lame.”

Success at Doing Nothing?

Unfortunately, on my last day in Provo, during which I was finally determined to do nothing, I played beach-bar trivia with my team of three traveling pals. Then, without respite, I joined in some strange competition where one of my partners and I were required to fold a beach towel in half, then again and again, and stand on it without letting our feet touch the sand.

Yes, the games were fun, but honestly, they were getting in the way of my schedule: I still had to order a late-afternoon martini. I still hadn’t taken a nap. I still had to look at the dinner menu. A choice was required: Would I wear a T-shirt to dinner or one of my egregious Hawaiian shirts? My to-do list was growing by the minute.

Decisions, decisions.

Work, work, work!

This wasn’t what I signed up for.

Although my vacation was more active than planned, I didn’t hold anything against Turks and Caicos or Provo in particular. And I enjoyed the Alexandra. It wasn’t their fault, after all, that I felt so much pressure. It was all on me. Next time, I’ll build in enough time to do nothing.

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Author Bio: Mark Orwoll is a frequent contributor to Go World Travel Magazine. His latest book is a travel memoir, Just One Little Hitch, about hitchhiking through Europe and Morocco at the end of the hippie era.