TURKS & CAICOS · CARIBBEAN
Grace Bay, the barrier reef, and the cays in between.
Reef snorkels, catamaran sails, iguana cays and sunset cruises across Providenciales, Grand Turk and the turquoise Caicos Banks.
Only in Turks & Caicos
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Beaches and boat trips exist on every Caribbean island. These three don’t. The reef, the iguana cays, the turquoise banks. Each one is specific to this scatter of low coral islands. Plan the rest of the trip around them.
On the reef
The Barrier Reef Off Grace Bay
Turks and Caicos sits on the third-largest barrier reef on earth, and the best of it starts a short swim from the sand. Bight Reef and Smith’s Reef drop into coral gardens full of turtles, eagle rays and the odd resident dolphin. The water keeps that improbable clarity almost every day of the year.
- 1 4hour Group Half Day Snorkeling Excursion in Grace Bay
- 2 2 Hour Champagne Sunset Cruise from Grace Bay, Providenciales (Adult Only)
- 3 Private 4 Hour Power Catamaran Excursion in Grace Bay
Little Water Cay
The Rock Iguana Cays
The Turks and Caicos rock iguana lives nowhere else on earth. A few hundred metres of boardwalk on Little Water Cay protect one of its last strongholds, and most boat trips out to the cays stop to walk it. Prehistoric, unbothered, and genuinely found only here.
- 1 Morning Half Day Cruise from Providenciales with Snorkeling and Iguana Island
- 2 Mangrove & Iguana Clear Kayak Tour
- 3 Afternoon Half Day Cruise from Providenciales with Snorkeling and Iguana Island
The Caicos Banks
Sailing The Turquoise Banks
West of Provo the ocean turns to a vast shallow shelf where the water glows pale jade over white sand. Catamarans cut out to sandbars you can stand on, anchor for a snorkel, then turn for home as the sky goes pink. It is the islands at their brightest.
- 1 Lady Grace Signature Catamaran Sunset Sail from Ritz-Carlton
- 2 Deluxe Half-Day Snorkel Sail on Lady Grace Luxury Catamaran
- 3 4 Hour Private Catamaran Sail and Snorkel from Grace Bay Beach, Providenciales
The one everyone books
Start with the trip that fills up first.
If you have a single free day on Provo, this is where to spend it. The day out on Grace Bay the whole island is built around.
The classics
The Most Booked Days On The Water
Catamaran sails, reef snorkels, iguana cays and champagne sunset cruises. The trips most travellers come to Turks and Caicos for.
Two very different islands
Which island are you?
Nearly every trip lands on Providenciales, and plenty of people never leave it. But Grand Turk is a different kind of place altogether, slower and older, with the wall dropping into the deep a few fins from shore. Here is how the two compare, so you can pick one or split the week between them.
Where almost everyone stays
Providenciales
Grace Bay’s twelve miles of white sand, the barrier reef a short sail offshore, and a marina full of catamarans. The busy, easy, beautiful island. Snorkel off the beach in the morning and sail the banks by afternoon.
Explore Providenciales →Where it slows right down
Grand Turk
Six square miles of donkeys, salt ponds and pastel colonial streets, with one of the Caribbean’s great wall dives a stone’s throw from the beach. Quieter, older, and where the cruise ships call. A day here is a different trip entirely.
Explore Grand Turk →By island
Pick a patch of the islands.
Each one is its own day. Providenciales for Grace Bay and the reef. Grand Turk for the history and the wall dive. Little Water Cay for the iguanas. Start where you are staying and work out.
By tour type
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Snorkel the reef, sail a catamaran out to the banks, kayak the mangroves, parasail over Grace Bay, or take a golf cart and explore Provo on your own. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of day.
If you came for the water
Out on the boat.
Half-day cruises, reef stops and island runs across the banks. The trips that put you on the turquoise and keep you there. Three we would book first.
Mask, fins, go
The snorkel days.
Smith’s Reef straight off the beach, Half Moon Bay’s sandbar, the coral heads out on the banks. The clearest water in the Caribbean and the reefs worth getting in for. Three of our favourites.
Golden hour
When the sky goes pink.
A glass of something cold, the sails up, and the whole western sky turning over the banks. A champagne sunset sail is how most trips here end the day. Three to book.
Off the water
The island by land.
A golf cart is how Provo actually gets around, and the rest fills in from there. Quad trails through the bush, Grand Turk’s tram through the old town, a parasail over Grace Bay for the view. The days that keep your feet dry.
If you only have a week
A first week in the islands.
Five days that string the best of Turks and Caicos together, from your first beach snorkel to a final sunset sail. A loose plan you can book day by day, not a package you have to commit to.
- 1 Day 1 Get in the water Settle into Grace Bay and snorkel straight off the sand at Smith’s Reef. See tours →
- 2 Day 2 Sail the banks A half-day catamaran out across the Caicos Banks, with reef stops and a swim. See tours →
- 3 Day 3 Meet the iguanas Little Water Cay for the rock iguanas, then kayak the mangroves next door. See tours →
- 4 Day 4 Explore by cart Take a golf cart the length of Provo and beach-hop at your own pace. See tours →
- 5 Day 5 End on the water A champagne sunset sail as the whole sky goes pink over the banks. See tours →
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