Where is Turks & Caicos?

We are located at the southern end of the Bahamas chain, about 100 miles north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Our main link to the rest of the world is by plane to Miami, which is around 500 miles to the northwest, or an hour and 20 minutes by plane. You can also fly here from Atlanta, Charlotte, Boston, New York, Nassau, and London Heathrow. I live on the island of Providenciales - pictured on the map below. Providenciales (known as “Provo” for short) is the main tourist destination in the islands, with the busiest international airport, and the most development in terms of hotels, resorts, condos and villas, though construction work is spreading to the other islands as well nowadays. The government however is based on Grand Turk, an island at the eastern end of the group. There are populations on North and Middle Caicos, South Caicos, and Salt Cay, but many of the smaller islands known as “cays” (pronounced keys, like the ones in Florida) are uninhabited.

Link to map

“Beautiful by Nature” - the TCI’s slogan

Turks and Caicos is famous for its pristine natural environment - especially the crystal clear waters around the islands. We don’t have any big hills or rivers, so there is little run-off from the land to muddy the waters. Also a large area between the islands (the Caicos Bank) is very shallow - 20-30 feet deep. This shows up very clearly on the satellite map. Tourism is the biggest industry here, followed by financial services, and some fishing. Our local delicacy, the Queen Conch (a kind of big marine snail) is world-famous - and much nicer to eat than it sounds, especially in fresh conch salad or conch fritters. The islands are a British Overseas Territory - with a locally-elected Government but owing allegiance to the Queen through the Governor who acts as London’s representative and adviser. We drive on the left like the UK, but for simplicity’s sake the US dollar is the official currency - most of our visitors come from the US as do the majority of imported goods.