WoW 9: Turks and Caicos Babymoonin’
This blog post will be more focused on beautiful spaces and documenting our last trip together as a couple than on some of the more wild adventures of the past. We went to Turks and Caicos with the goal to relax and rejuvenate with lots of time spent outside and not in front of computers after a long haul last 12 months packed with endless hours of screen time and zoom meetings.
Our agenda was slim, but we were grateful to leave our four walls and spend some time exploring a new country. The Turks and Caicos Islands are in the Atlantic Ocean and are considered a British Territory. If you don’t know where they are on a map, they can be found to the east of Cuba and just north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. What makes Turks and Caicos so special? The crystal clear waters and super predictable climate.
Those of you who know us know we usually plan bucket list trips on a roadmap a few years out to ensure we can utilize our vacation time in a way to make it all happen (if only we had endless PTO!). When we had penciled in what our babymoon would be, we were planning on spending it in Greece. Well, we didn’t anticipate we would be expecting our first child during a global pandemic and sadly, Greece wouldn’t welcome us with open arms. Since travel is such an integral part of who we are and our relationship together, we were determined to be smart but still go somewhere new for our Babymoon. We were set on a warmer destination considering being pregnant, it was hard to plan a lot of more adventurous excursions and long hikes… beach time was perfect for this trip. We started to research warm places with the lowest rates of COVID infection and strictest COVID protocols to narrow down our list. We were looking for somewhere that may not be super simple to get to, but would be a safer option once we were there. Turks and Caicos fit the mold perfectly! Their COVID response has been strong since the beginning. A few things that Turks and Caicos did that went above and beyond some other options were; having great testing protocol’s to get onto and leave the island (no rapid tests were allowed due to greater error), an application and approval process through the government, mandatory COVID travel insurance, continued mask mandates and to top it all off… the staff of our resort were being tested DAILY!
Once we navigated the extra steps to get to Turks and Caicos, it was a breeze from there. We spent our days from sun up to sun down outside going from pool to beach to pool and repeat.. crawling back into our beds at the end of the night completely sun drunk in the best way. We did sunrise oceanside yoga a few mornings. We took beach walks. Mitch had his fair share of cocktails while Tara indulged in mocktails. We found good eats and took a few walks through the main town in Providenciales where we were staying. We biked on little beach cruisers. We read books next to breathtaking ocean views and we woke up to the view of the ocean from our room each morning. It was totally unlike most of our other trips with a non-existent agenda, but it was exactly what we needed at this season of life and for that we are so grateful.
We have no big travel tips or wild stories, however, wanted to share a collection of our photos as a time capsule to look back on as our last trip just us two before we welcome little Starbaby into the Wanderlust mix next month.
Happy Travels!
The Starback’s