Hold the holistics... I'm on holiday

We've had retro-chic, retro-fashion and retro-food. Isn't it time for the retro-holiday? Somewhere hot and exotic where an unsophisticated poolside bar is considered

Pine Cay and Parrot Cay are part of the Turks and Caicos, a chain of lowlying limestone ridges edged by blindingly white beaches, floating off the end of the Bahamas. But, make no mistake, Pine Cay offers not a lot: no lush scenery or dramatic cliffs, no cars, newspapers, televisions or telephones (mobiles don't work), no spa or fitness centre, no private pools or shops, no air-conditioning or room service. Only 13, simple, beachfront rooms, a clubhouse dining room and 30-odd private houses.

By contrast, Parrot Cay's 58 exquisitely furnished rooms - designed by the unerringly tasteful Christina Ong and set in manicured gardens - are so resolutely geared to making guests feel special (butler, gardener, in-room massage) that the island is barred to non-guests. There is the feeling that, should you want the sea just a tad bluer it could be arranged.

Landing on the 800-acre Pine Cay a couple of days later, where I was encouraged to remove my watch and my shoes ("we're a barefoot community") I was freaked out. Where was everybody? Convinced there had been a major airlift I had failed to hear - I could see not a soul in the water or on the beach - I kept rushing back to reception for signs of activity.

Then I began walking its icingsugarsoft two-mile beach and it started to make sense. The sea spread to the horizon, blue as a Hockney Californian pool. The only sound was the rushing of the surf. As Chuck and Diane from Pennsylvania, on their eighth visit, put it: "Look to the left of you, what do you see? Nothing. Look to the right of you, what do you see? Nothing."

If it's that good, why have we only just heard of Pine Cay when it has been going longer than its sister island (1973 vs 1998)? Partly it's been a well-kept secret, partly it's feeling competition (Fregate Island, Seychelles and Turtle Island, Fiji) but mainly, I suspect, because its simplistic appeal is right for our times. Life is so multi-choice it is blissful to go somewhere which isn't. Even the kitsch, cane-furnished dining room - like a suburban golf club - is a comfort blanket.

While Parrot Cay is white on white d?cor, yoga lessons, organic menus and infinity pools, Pine Cay offers a natural simplicity - Caribbean coloured furnishings, wobbly bicycles, blackboard menus, sign-up sheets for tennis. Like its neighbour, it has spacious rooms, an excess of fluffy towels and attentive staff, but in a less precious way - a stack of books in your room, for example, rather than a hi-fi. Once your brain has adjusted to the lack of sophistication - shall I go for a walk, swim, or nap? - it is refreshingly relaxing. I used a bicycle to explore sand tracks known locally as Ocean Boulevard and Interstate Highway One. I spent an afternoon beachcombing. I grew mildly more energetic and kayaked or walked the length of the beach at sunset. Barrage balloons of fluffy clouds burned pink as the sky was shaded every colour in a child's paint box.

By Pine Cay standards, I was ludicrously active. "They read, they sleep, they stroll," said Bev Plachta, who manages the island with her husband Walter. "They start by faxing the office every day at $15 a sheet. The island is truly inconvenient for communications. Once they realise it's not going to happen, it allows them to relax. We tell them they're allowed to nap; it's on the agenda."

This laid-back approach suits the lowkey wealthy individual - "People who don't need to be seen," as Bev puts it. Although you wouldn't know it - everyone's in shorts, garish shirts and bare feet - guests are lawyers, surgeons, politicians and heads of business empires. I met an actors' agent from LA, a top medical litigation attorney from Ohio, and Billy and Bunny, who own a restaurant in Maine and are, according to insiders, "thick with the Bushes".

Frankly, they are happy for Parrot Cay to have the glitz and the glamour. As one homeowner told me: "We've turned down celebrities. They were too demanding." After dinner (every night I was invited to join a different table) we talked about the fish we'd caught (or almost caught) or played Mexican Train, a furious game of dominoes, whose rules I'd just about grasped by the time I left.

Its "less is more" attitude won't appeal to everyone. Certainly not the American editor who panicked because no telephone meant she wouldn't get her wakeup call and was outraged that the one payphone - in a turquoise shack beside the tennis court - refused to connect her despite 23 attempts.

Parrot Cay has the edge when it comes to elegance, contemporary chic and attention to detail. But it depends how you like your simplicity: faultlessly designed and beautifully presented or naturally distilled and breezily unpretentious.

Way to go

Helen Pickles travelled to the Turks and Caicos with Seasons in Style (0151 342 0505). Until 7 April seven nights at Pine Cay cost from £2,550pp full board, sharing a club room, including flights. Seven nights, with flights, at Parrot Cay from £2,290pp B&B, sharing a garden-view room.