There’s nothing better than getting away during the Albany metro area’s coldest week of the year. What better way to make your co-workers jealous than to leave them all behind for warmer environs. But is it possible to do it on a budget? If this trip is any indication, it would be a challenge!
Marge and I spent nine days near the end of January in Turks & Caicos, our first trip to the Caribbean since Aruba in 2012 (coincidentally our first flight ever paid for with frequent flyer miles). Despite being just a short flight away, this was our most expensive trip logged here, and that includes Switzerland! We tried our hardest to be frugal, but Turks was just not having it! We made most of our food in our own kitchens, but still spent our monthly at-home food budget in nine days.
You might be wondering how Turks & Caicos is fairing after the hurricane. I was worried because the storm was in the area and news reports were that the island was hit, but after the storm you seemed to only hear about Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. I’m happy to report that Turks & Caicos is doing mostly okay. They had problems with electricity and water for a while, and there are a ton of roofs that still need repair, but they avoided the worst of it. Best of all, tourists like us are still coming! I have a feeling that the places that were hit worse have also lost a lot of needed tourism dollars. On Providenciales, you see lots of blue tarp roofs, bare trees, and sand blown where it shouldn’t be, but everything was running fine.
Total Cost: $2,552.70
Flights
Don’t pack a pest!
| 2 Tickets | Retail Cost | Miles Used | Our Cost |
| United, Economy, Newark to Providenciales, RT | $1,252 | 68,000 Lufthansa Miles | $246.12 |
The whole impetus of our trip to Turks & Caicos was that we had Lufthansa frequent flyer miles that we had to use. Unlike most frequent flyer mile programs, Lufthansa miles have a hard expiration date. You can’t keep them alive by having some activity on your account. They will expire three years after you’ve earned them. We signed up for one Lufthansa credit card each years ago, so we only had enough miles to get us as far as the Caribbean.
Years ago I had seen stunning pictures of the Blue Horizon Resort on Middle Caicos, a huge and secluded island with stunning beaches. I kept it in the back of my mind as a place to visit one day, and here was the opportunity! I checked Wikipedia, a strangely great place for flight planning, to find where we could fly direct from Newark to Turks on United, and you can use Lufthansa miles on United since it is a Star Alliance partner.
Accommodations
| Hotel | Nights | Cost Per Night | Total Cost |
| La Vista Azul, Providenciales | 4 | $180.90 | $723.61 |
| Creekview Cottage, North Caicos | 5 | $109.80 | $549.00 |
| Total | 9 | $1,272.61 |
La Vista Azul
We booked our place on Providenciales, La Vista Azul, through VRBO. La Vista Azul is part hotel, part condominiums. We rented one of the condos. I found many listings for La Vista Azul condos, all identical, so I went with the cheapest one which was $135/night plus cleaning fees and taxes. The property was nice, we had a great view from the balcony, a few different pools to use, and a full kitchen which allowed us to save a ton of money on food by cooking most of our meals. It feels weird to say that, seeing as how we spent so much money on food anyway, but it would’ve been much more if we had to eat out.
Creekview Cottage, with Red the dog
Then we used AirB&B to rent the Creekview Cottage on North Caicos for five nights. It was an adventure. And I mean that in a good way! North Caicos is remote and very undeveloped. The cottage was a guesthouse next to the owners’ home. They have an outdoor area with parrots, parakeets, and chickens, five friendly dogs, and a garden full of tomatoes, herbs, and are working on much more. The breeze comes right through the cottage, and there is no noise from civilization. It was the perfect place to get away from it all.
There was a little hotplate which was enough for us to cook most of our meals there, too. That was important because there are few restaurants on North Caicos, and their hours can be.. um.. unpredictable.
Driving across Middle Caicos in our Honda Fit
Transportation
| Transport for 2 | Cost | Miles Covered |
| Taxi, Airport to Hotel | $25 | 4 |
| Taxi, Hotel to Ferry Pier | $40 | 7 |
| Ferry to North Caicos (RT) | $100 | 30 |
| Ride from Ferry Pier to AirB&B | FREE | 10 |
| Car Rental on North Caicos | $130 | 95 |
| Gas on North Caicos | $20 | |
| Bike Riding on North Caicos | FREE | 20 |
| Taxi, Ferry Pier to Airport | $60 | 10 |
| Total | $375 | 176 miles |
| Avg Cost Per Mile | $2.13/mile |
Turks & Caicos had the most expensive transportation of any country we’ve visited BY FAR. Compare this $2.13 per mile to Thailand ($0.11/mile) Japan ($0.33/mile), Peru ($0.79/mile), and Switzerland ($1.16/mile).
Aside from the fact that everything is expensive here, our transportation was costly because Providenciales is not served by any public transportation. This seems insane to me. Being a narrow island, it seems like it would be easy to have a bus that just goes from one end of the island to the other on Leeward Highway. You’d have most of the island covered!
As it is, if you don’t rent a car, you will have to rely on taxis to get around. And as with everything else, this is not cheap. Especially if you’re like me and you tip well! I think I tipped our three taxi drivers 25%, 81%, and 27% respectively. They did get hit by a hurricane, you know, and could probably use the extra cash in the economy.
I was hoping to save money by not renting a car on Providenciales, and maybe we did. But they also drive on the left side of the road in Turks & Caicos and I was nervous about that. Seeing how the lowest prices were around $40 a day for a car, I would definitely recommend renting a car if you’re up for it, since even going for a few trips would be cheaper with a rental car.
When it came to our five days on North Caicos, our AirB&B had one-speed bicycles to use! With the bicycles we made it to Horsestable Beach, one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever seen, but they were slow, and going more than five miles wasn’t really feasible.
We also rented a car for two days to see more of North and Middle Caicos. I was more confident in driving on the left on North Caicos because there’s hardly any other cars around (we probably went 30 minutes at one point without passing another car). You just wouldn’t be able to see much of the islands without a car.
Our AirB&B host drove us from the ferry to her house, so that part was free. And when you rent a car on North Caicos, they will drop it off wherever you want, and you can probably leave it wherever you want (but leaving it at the ferry pier before you leave makes the most sense). So they dropped it off at our house, and we signed the papers there. It’s very informal.
The only problem was filling up with gas on the last day. We used a quarter of a tank, but on our last day, neither of the gas stations were open! (I say “neither” because, truly, we only saw two gas stations) I don’t know if they’re always closed on Mondays or what, but I left $20 under the mat with the keys and sent an “I’m sorry” email to the owner. Apparently that was good enough.
Lobster Curry at Mango Reef
Food
| Meal | Price |
| Mango Reef, Dinner | $89.72 |
| Graceway IGA, Groceries (4 days) | $191.00 |
| Shark Bite, Dinner | $74.49 |
| Crust Bakery, Groceries | $16.00 |
| Gilley’s, Lunch | $46.76 |
| Miss B’s Restaurant, Lunch | $55.00 |
| Nique’s Market, Groceries (5 days) | $116.00 |
| Mudjin Grill, Lunch | $70.00 |
| Total Food Cost | $658.97 |
| Average Cost Per Day, Per Person | $36.61 |
Similar to the transportation, this was our most expensive trip by far when it comes food. We spent $36.61 per person, per day. Compare that to Thailand ($8.29), Peru ($13.67), Japan ($17.20), and Switzerland ($25.42).
And it’s not like we were eating out at restaurants more than normal. We probably try to cook the same number of meals in on all out our trips. Hmmm… maybe a 2/3 cooking, 1/3 eating out split? Although I should note that Thailand trip was almost all restaurant meals. That’s how incredibly cheap that country is. And so delicious…
But anyway… Turks & Caicos does not have a super unique cuisine compared to the U.S. They specialize in conch dishes, but beyond that, not much that wouldn’t be on a menu at home. We tried to eat as much fish as possible, even though we either had to buy it frozen, or wanted to buy it frozen because it was cheaper. Some of the vegetables were frozen, so we were trying to keep it affordable, but Turks was just not having it! 
At restaurants, we were having a lot of conch salads, cracked conch, and lobster. They each cost a pretty penny, not that meat or vegetarian dishes are any cheaper. If you see cracked conch or conch salad on a menu, get it, because that was uniformly good. So was the jerk burger I had at Mudjin Grill. And Marge’s lobster curry was great. But other than that, not much to write home about!
Recreation: $0
No money was spent on sightseeing and recreation. We were thinking about trying paddleboarding, but the price quote we got on North Caicos was unthinkable. It was something like $60 or $90 per board! Crazy. The only major museum is on the island of Grad Turk, and we weren’t there. There are some sights you need to pay to enter, but mostly you’d be paying for activities like snorkeling trips, parasailing, etc.
Our rental on Providenciales included snorkel gear, plus we had brought our swimming goggles, so we were able to explore the nearby reefs off Grace Bay beach for free!
Trust me, there are fish in this photo!
I brought my camera and my new $20 underwater camera case to take photos one day. Of course I didn’t bring it on the day that we saw a sea turtle feeding on algae, and two majestic, yet creepy, sting rays! So the above is the best photo you’re going to get
Mostly we spent our time exploring the beaches, swimming, driving around North and Middle Caicos, reading by the pool at La Vista Azul, and watching an inordinate amount of The Golden Girls on the Hallmark Channel. And the movies! The movies on the Hallmark Channel are nuts!
Miscellaneous: $0
We didn’t spend any money on gifts, postcards, or laundry while we were in Turks & Caicos. We didn’t come home empty-handed, though! We managed to smuggle two conch shells through customs!
OK, actually the law on bringing conch shells out of Turks was extremely unclear, so it might’ve been allowed. We still didn’t declare them, though. The beaches of North Caicos were littered with them, so they are a nice reminder of our trip.
Summary
The Caribbean made for a quick and easy getaway. It was a beautiful place to spend to spend nine days in January, with the secluded beaches and 80 degree ocean water. But what it wasn’t was cheap. In fact, for what we spent one nine days in Turks & Caicos, we could repeat our trip to Thailand almost three times! After a practically free flight to the other side of the world, Thailand cost us less than $900. After a practically free flight to Turks & Caicos, we still spent $2,500. We learned our lesson. Find the cheap countries and fly there!