It’s not often that traveling off-grid for a vacation actually accomplishes lasting relaxation. For any sense of real remoteness, I’ve long come to terms with the fact that you usually need to sacrifice some luxury: Hiking through silent desert valleys, camping in elephant-adjacent safari tents, and sleeping in jungle-nestled tree houses lit only by candlelight all come to mind as the kinds of places I’ve savored the off-grid experience, but felt there was a mandatory “roughing it” subtext. Often, you have to choose between remoteness and relaxation—but every once in a while you find the rare place that serves you both on a silver platter; that happened for me for the first time recently over a stay at Ambergris Cay, a completely private island located in the southwest Atlantic off the main chain of Turks and Caicos.
Ambergris Cay’s reputation preceded itself in the form of our Readers’ Choice Awards, in which the resort just won the title of number five best resort overall in the Atlantic and best private island in that group—as well as in the Caribbean, considering no private island resort scored higher in that category. The title might not be a surprise to our readers, who voted in droves for Ambergris Cay and described the island as “unlike anything I could imagine,” a means to “experience Turks in the best way possible,” and (my favorite two-word response) simply “pampered seclusion.” And it’s not just us; the island also won the World Travel Awards’ title for Leading Caribbean Private Island Resort in August.
The remote island that straddles the cusp of the Caribbean and the Atlantic is just a 20 minute flight from Providenciales (and is not to be confused with the Belize island Ambergris Caye). It’s something straight out of a Drake song, achieving billionaire-level relaxation over serene azure waters, rugged nature, and butler-serviced waterfront villas—some of which have private owners who hand-picked this island as their uber-remote Caicos Banks community of choice for holidays and family trips that serve as the antidote to any see-and-be-seen tourist spots. Ambergris Cay has become popular with outdoor-minded CEOs and professional athletes whose ideal getaway includes as much deep-sea fishing and tennis as it does five-course dining, indulgent spa treatments, and multi-bedroom beach houses with a stretch of unending coastline all to yourself (and whoever you’d like to take along).
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