A lone melancholy donkey reminiscent of Eeyore greets me outside the South Caicos Airport. He's one of hundreds of feral donkeys roaming the island, remnants of the commercial salt industry, which ceased in the 1970s. Sparkling pink salt flats still stretch across the island, but today South Caicos is known for its dive sites and bonefishing, emerging as a tranquil travel destination.
The just-opened Salterra, a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Turks and Caicos is only the second luxury property on the island (Sailrock South Caicos is the other) and the first proper resort with multiple dining options and a full-service spa. Indigenous Taino culture influences design elements like ceremonial wooden duho chairs, carved wooden entry doors and figurines behind the front desk in the lobby. Fossilized coral stone walls were brought in from the nearby Dominican Republic and lend a natural elegance to the resort's light and breezy contemporary style.
Accommodation Offerings
All 100 rooms and suites face the ocean, and more than half the room inventory are butler-serviced suites. Two presidential suites have three bedrooms each, and ground floor one-bedroom suites include private lanais with hammocks and connect to double queen rooms through a private vestibule. Room decor, including the carpets and aerial photographs by managing director Michael Tibbets above each bed, is inspired by the island's signature salinas.
The double showers, like the suites themselves, are very spacious with stone mosaic floors, marble benches on either end and full-size Byredo bath amenities. I enjoyed doing yoga on my lanai each morning with ocean views, and napping on the hammock during one especially windy afternoon with the breeze rustling through my hair.
Accommodations feature spacious bathrooms and double showers.
Credit: 2025 Marriott InternationalHow to Explore Salterra
Salterra bills itself as not just family-friendly, but family-focused. Unlike most Luxury Collection properties, there's a kids’ club (Tibbetts' pre-teens helped design the programming and picked out the wall decals) that offers complimentary activities for children ages 4-12 with babysitting services available for younger ones. There's also a dedicated children's pool and an adults-only pool at the spa, which has eight treatment rooms including two rooms for couples. My Balinese massage therapist, Tisna, was wonderful, with soft but strong hands and an astute understanding of acupressure.
From the resort, guests can access a 2-mile stretch of continuous soft sand beach that's part of Admiral Cockburn Land and Sea National Park. Lounge chairs and umbrellas are set up by the beach, but on windier days, most guests seem to prefer the pool, where there are 11 private cabanas to relax in. An early morning beach walk is the perfect way to start the day, and the waters are so shallow that visitors can wade out quite far, with tropical fish swimming between their legs. I even ran into a few more shy donkey friends.
Visitors to the resort can wade in its shallow waters, which are teeming with tropical fish.
Credit: 2025 Marriott InternationalAdventures by Salterra
Salterra is the first Marriott property globally to have an in-house adventure outlet, Adventures by Salterra. Travelers can choose from a wide array of ocean adventures suitable for all ages and abilities, including paddleboarding and kayaking through mangrove forests and uninhabited cays, humpback whale watching in winter, snorkeling in nearby shallow reefs and scuba diving to see sharks, sea turtles and eagle rays. This is one of the best bonefishing locations in the world, and anglers know that these grey ghosts put up a valiant fight.
Salterra can even arrange a private island picnic getaway as a romantic surprise. For those who prefer to stay on land, birdwatching nature walks are a fun excursion to spot herons, kestrels, stilts and flamingoes as pink as the salinas ready for harvest.
Dining Options
There are six dining outlets on property, ranging from Jack & Jenny's poolside food truck to Brine, which is only open for dinner and serves a five-course tasting menu with infused salt pairings. Very few ingredients are available locally, but conch is a Turks and Caicos classic that you can't leave without trying.
My favorite preparation at Salterra is a refreshing ceviche-style conch salad at Cobo Bar & Grill, where Executive Chef Agnelo Goes mixes toothsome, crunchy conch with finely diced mango and pineapple to highlight the gastropod's natural sweetness. Sisal is the resort's lobby bar with light bites and drinks, while the adjacent Flamingo Cafe is a convenient stop for grab-and-go pastries, sandwiches, coffee and house made gelato. My favorite breakfast order? An affogato with indulgent mascarpone gelato.
I've been to Providenciales many times in the past, but this was my first trip to South Caicos, and I can only imagine that perhaps this raw natural beauty is what it used to be like several decades ago. For now, it's still untouched and remote, but more development is on the way. Salterra's next phase includes residences with three to five bedrooms that will offer additional inventory for multigenerational travelers.
