Visas, flights, money, history and the long shared story of Ghana and Britain, written by people who travel the country, not by people who sell it.
Ghana is not a package-holiday destination, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. It is a young country, independent since 1957, where tourism was only seriously promoted from the 1990s. Many hotels, parks and restaurants are still learning what visitors expect, and once you leave Accra, Kumasi and the main coastal towns, Western standards often simply do not apply.
That is not a reason to stay away. It is a reason to come prepared. Roads can be long and rough, public toilets are rare outside the cities, power cuts still happen, and a lot runs on Ghanaian time. Bring patience, good humour and your own toilet tissue. In return you get a country most visitors find welcoming and relatively easy to travel by West African standards, a history tied to Britain at almost every turn, and food that is far better than the frozen packs in UK supermarkets suggest.
GhanaNet.co.uk has been online since 2001. It is the UK sister site of ghana-net.com and it does one job: give travellers and the Ghanaian diaspora in Britain the practical, unvarnished picture before they book.
Everything that has to be sorted before you sit on the plane, in the order you actually need it.
Trip planning, step by stepThe honest order of things, from visa to first night. Visa and the High Commission in LondonHow UK residents apply, and the mistakes that cost weeks. Flights from the UKDirect and connecting routes, timing and baggage. Accra International AirportYour first hour in Ghana: immigration, money, taxis. Ghana travel adviceSafety, health, customs and photography etiquette. Money in GhanaCedi, cash, cards, ATMs and mobile money. Where to stayRegion by region, and what your money really buys. Getting aroundTrotro, STC bus, taxis, rail and domestic flights. Climate and best time to visitDry season, rains, Harmattan, and the peak-price months.The Gold Coast was a British colony until 6 March 1957, when it became Ghana, widely remembered as the first sub-Saharan African colony to win its independence. Long before the colony, British traders ran the slave trade from forts along this coast through much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with Cape Coast Castle as their headquarters. The English language, the courts, the Commonwealth ties and the large Ghanaian community in Britain today all run back to that history.
We tell that story straight, without the marketing gloss and without the guilt-trip tourism.
Independence from Britain, 1957From Gold Coast to free nation: Nkrumah, Danquah and the Big Six. The slave trade, Britain and the Gold CoastA chronology from the first forts to abolition. Forts and castlesUssher Fort, James Fort, Elmina, Cape Coast and more. History of GhanaFrom the old kingdoms and the Asante Empire to today. Presidents of GhanaEvery head of state, from Nkrumah to Mahama. Government and politicsConstitution, parliament, parties and Jubilee House.Where it is worth going, how hard it is to get there, and what you will find when you arrive.
Things to do in AccraJamestown, Independence Square, markets and museums. Ghana attractionsNzulezo, Aburi, Kumasi and the places worth the journey. Beaches of GhanaWhere to swim, where not to, and what the brochures leave out. National parksKakum, Mole, Paga and the wildlife sites. Akosombo and Lake VoltaThe dam, the lake and the boat trips. Regions of GhanaAll 16 regions and their capitals.