Twins in the Cities: Happy Honeymoon : Turks and Caicos Islands

It is too bad no one has invented teleportation or time travel yet... I want to be back on my honeymoon!

Joe and I decided back in February to book a week in the Turks and Caicos Islands for our honeymoon. I am thankful that we thought ahead in that we wanted to be somewhere quiet, relaxing and with some fun things to do. We initially found TCI when I received an email with the top 25 most beautiful beaches in the world. We did a little more research and were sold!

One thing to note, August is very much off-season for the Caribbean. We did have a slight delay in our travel plans due to a tropical storm but once we were there, it was wonderful. The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and 82 degrees most days. Many resorts looked empty, sun chairs all lined up with no one to sit in them. But we loved how quiet it was. We never had a problem getting an umbrella, chair at the pool, seat at the swim up bar or a dinner reservation.

The water was breath-taking, unlike anything I have ever seen. A local told us on the flight that TCI ocean has six difference shades of color. We sat for hours throughout the week just looking at and swimming in the ocean.

Our favorite little spot in TCI

Our resort had paddle boards, kayaks and snorkeling gear. We enjoyed using these during the day. We took the snorkeling gear twice over to Brief Reef in the Princess Alexandra Nature Reserve, one of the reefs that you can swim to from the beach. It was my first time snorkeling and it felt like swimming in a vast aquarium. The fish were gorgeous and plentiful, the coral was stunning and the last snorkeling trip, we even saw a sea turtle!! My greatest wish while in the water was to see a turtle while snorkeling so the mouth full of salt water inhaled in excitement was totally worth it.

They have a great number of excursions available. We took a half day snorkeling excursion which took us out to the barrier reef, the third largest in the world! We had a blast, so much to see. We then took off to watch our guide dive for conch, which he easily pulled up five or six on his first dive. While we waited, we witnessed a huge eagle ray gliding through the water. We stopped on Iguana Island to de-shell the conch and look for iguanas. This was our favorite spot. We found this adorable little hidden beach and Joe was tickled with all of the iguanas that we spotted. We were having so much fun, we realized that we had lost track of time and that everyone was back on the boat and waiting for us!

If you have a rainy day or need a break from the sun, there is always the Downtown area. This has Cuban Cigar shops, souvenir shops, art galleries, boutiques and the famous Potcakes. Potcakes rents out puppies for the day and sells them as well. We saw a number of people who had purchased puppies and brought them home with them due to how inexpensive they are to buy in TCI, not to mention how cute they are. We thought about it but decided that we could come back on an anniversary trip someday and re-evaluate the puppy decision.

Our resort had a gorgeous pool with a nice swim up bar. We loved grabbing drinks or island juices from here during the day. At night, the resort restaurant, Mango Reef, has some of the best food on the island. We had dinner on the beach the first night that we were there, Joe had the mahi mahi and I had lobster pasta. Delicious! We also tried Coco Bistro, a lovely outdoor restaurant surrounded by palm trees. Since it was lobster season, we indulged in the most delectable lobster tacos, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. We also tried the yellowfin tuna and some homemade pina colada sorbet. It was a perfect dinner for our last night on the island.

We may be a little biased but we loved Turks and Caicos. We are excited that it will be such a lovely place to visit for anniversaries to come and it was the perfect "happymoon" spot.