Pine Cay, Turks and Caicos

Pine Cay, Turks and Caicos

Getting to Pine Cay involves a flight to Providenciales, then a boat, because this is a private island with no other way in, and once ashore there are no cars, only bicycles and electric golf carts trundling along sandy paths between thirteen rooms and suites, one floor, wrapped around 800 acres of scrub and two miles of white beach. That scale is the thing peers with hundreds of rooms and a marina can't match: here there is genuinely nowhere else to be, no lobby crowd, no second seating for dinner. Meals are covered by Island-Inclusive rates and served wherever the mood takes you, poolside, at the beachfront Tiki Bar, or laid out on the sand under a sky the resort is oddly proud of, since after dark the water sometimes glows with bioluminescent worms and the sunset over the western tip flashes green before it drops. Snorkelling trips run daily out to the reef balls and the "Aquarium," where turtles and herons gather, and Saturday nights bring a beachfront barbecue that mixes hotel guests with the handful of homeowners who live on the island year-round. The Sand Dollar Spa has two treatment rooms and a Balinese therapist for anyone who wants the coconut-oil massage instead of another walk. None of this suits someone chasing nightlife, a big pool scene, or a fast Wi-Fi-and-conference-room work trip, despite the meeting space on offer; the appeal is quiet, barefoot, slightly eccentric, closer to visiting friends with excellent taste than checking into a hotel. Extra beds and airport transfers carry real surcharges, worth knowing before arrival. First opened in the 1970s and still the country's longest continually running hotel, it has kept the same unhurried habits since. Thirteen rooms on a private, car-free island reached only by boat, with a beach few resorts can rival and a nightly green-flash sunset thrown in. It suits travellers after quiet and barefoot barbecues, not nightlife or fast Wi-Fi. Transfers and extra beds cost extra.