Customer Reviews

Frommer's Portable Turks & Caicos

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you look around, you'll discover that there aren't a lot of choices when it comes to travel books on Turks & Caicos. That reflects TCI's lingering status as "Turks and Who?"
Go into a bookstore, and you're more likely to find a book covering the entire Caribbean -- with perhaps 20 pages devoted to TCI. That means spending 20-plus bucks and toting around a lot of extra weight.
Lonely Planet offers a TCI diving book, which has more background information than you might expect, but it doesn't have a tremendous amount of the bed-and-butter stuff on hotels, restaurants, etc.
Amazon has some titles from little-known publishers. These may be perfectly good books. However, if you're like me, you're not inclined to spend money on what might be a crapshoot.
Frommer's Portable Turks & Caicos is a good, safe choice. It appears to have slightly more information than is located in Frommer's Caribbean book, and it's far easier to carry around (very nice when you're walking the beach).
This late 2006 edition is still mostly up to date, with one major exception: The Gecko shuttle service went out of business in February 2008, which means you're left only with rental cars or taxis. The book ought to point out that you really don't need a weekly rental on TCI -- a day or two at most works fine. This is one case where free pickup by tour operators makes a lot of sense.
Most of the hotels, restaurants and attractions touted by the book still exist, but there are some omissions. It doesn't list Grace Bay Rentals, the only truly affordable car choice on the island ($40 for a Corolla). It also could use some refreshing to account for the changing Grace Bay Beach oceanfront, which is getting filled up with timeshares and condos. Other quibbles: The book talks about the lack of rain, but doesn't adequately discuss the impact of wind. We stayed five days, and about half the time, the stiff breezes made water activities quite problematic. It's the equivalent of SoCal winter rain -- stay only a few days, and you may have lousy conditions the whole time.
The book is also bit lavish in its praise of TCI snorkeling. Cozumel/Yucatan ('04), Moorea/Bora Bora ('95) and Oahu's Haunama Bay ('86) were all superior. I also wish they'd been a bit more forthright about the relative lack of attractions on the SE side of the island. We went searching a small "kiddie" bay touted in the book, and it was a long wasted trip.
Also, a more detailed map might have been nice, but since we're dealing with a pocket edition, I can understand why that didn't happen. They might also want to point out that walking Grace Bay Road is a lot faster than walking the beach (though not remotely as beautiful)
Meanwhile, their restaurant recommendations were fairly spot-on (Hemingway's, for example, was a good choice).
Overall, if you're only going to TCI, then the only reason NOT to buy this book would be to wait for the update. Otherwise, it's only $10 or so. Compared to the total cost of the trip, that's peanuts.

This small, travel-sized book contains everything you need to know, but wouldn't think to ask! Especially helpful were the restaurant reviews and the information on how to get around the island. A must-have if it is your first visit to Turks and Caicos.

I am about to make my 5th trip to Turks and Caicos. I have read every travel book and magazine available. The books get out of date very quickly. This one is pretty up to date (with just a few old things, such as references to Nikki resort, which closed). Furthermore, I learned a few new things. I was glad I invested in this book and look forward to taking it with me on my next trip.

This book is helpful to make you aware of what is on the island but lacks the detail that is need to help you find what you are looking for or where you are going. As you travel Turks & Caicos you'll find roads and attractions are poorly marked and mostly not marked at all. You'll become dependent on talking to other travelers for tips on how to get to places and what roads to take. If you find a beach or attraction in the book that interests you, you'll need to get travel directions on Trip Advisor and other such sites on how to get there as this book does NOT provide those details.

I used the travel guide some, but for a cruise going to the island of Grand Turk this is not really needed as that island is small and you are mostly limited to the Cruise Terminal and the shore excursions from the cruise ship.

This was a perfect little book on Turks and Caicos for the 1st time visitor. Small enough to carry along and all the info you might need to enhance your trip.

This book was helpful in trying to, if nothing else, find restaurants that were worth going to on the island. We had already booked our travel, so the section on "where to stay" was unnecessary. But overall it was a useful guide to have for someone who had never been to Providenciales before.

I just returned from a trip to Turks & Caicos with this book as my guide. Several people in my group acquired various Turks & Caicos guides. Compared to Fodor's or others, this version of Frommer's was more concise and user-friendly. Several times my family ignored their guides and asked what mine suggested. I didn't have to "study" prior to my vacation--I just picked up the book and went! We enjoyed every place that we visited and had a blast!

Note: on 26 Dec, 2010 "Scooter Bob" told me that he no longer rents scooters. Such a disappointment!

AS it turns out, Turks & Caicos is a really small place, so no real need for a guide. This one is good.

A good book, but I found it to be off on some details. For instance, it talks about North and Middle Caicos as if it is quite a site to see, but in reality, it is quite depressing. Many of the typical tourist locations were abandoned, the "causeway" that the book boasts about had been destroyed by a hurricane in 2008, and while you can still cross between the islands, it is a rough trek.

The conch bar caves, were talked up quite a bit imo.