Accra

Currency

The cedi has been volatile for years, so change in small amounts and check the rate the day you do it. Forex bureaux in Osu and Airport City beat the banks and beat the airport hall by a wide margin. Mobile money — MTN MoMo — is how the country actually pays for things, and a tourist SIM can be loaded with it.

ATMs & cards

Use bank machines — Stanbic, Absa, Ecobank, GCB — inside branches or malls, and expect a limit per withdrawal that is lower than you want. Some machines dispense only cedis in large notes; break them at a supermarket. Cards work in hotels and malls, cash and MoMo everywhere else.

Mobile money — MTN MoMo — is how Ghana actually pays, and a tourist SIM can be loaded with it. Forex bureaux in Osu beat the banks.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety

Ghana is among the safest countries in West Africa and Accra is comfortable, but petty theft happens in Makola and on Labadi beach, and the sea along this coast has a fierce undertow that drowns people every year. Traffic is the genuine daily risk — crossing roads on foot is a real skill here. Scams involving "friends" met at the airport or in Osu are common and persistent.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa

Health & emergencies

Required to enter

• Yellow fever certificate — required of all arrivals over nine months old, and checked at the airport

Worth having

• Routine vaccinations up to date
• Hepatitis A and typhoid
• Malaria prophylaxis, year-round
• Rabies for longer stays

Getting treated

Private hospitals in Accra — Nyaho, the Trust — are good by regional standards and take payment up front. Outside the capital, care is basic and evacuation is the realistic plan. Insurance covering repatriation matters more than the treatment cover.

Yellow fever vaccination is genuinely mandatory here and travellers are turned back without the certificate. Malaria is present everywhere all year. The coastal undertow at Labadi and along the Gulf of Guinea is severe and drowns swimmers every year.

Orientation, not medical advice. Entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history and where you have been — check with a travel clinic or your national health service four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Jollof, and do not say it is better in Nigeria. Also waakye for breakfast, banku with tilapia and pepper, and kelewele — fried plantain with ginger and chilli — from a street stall at night. The chop bars are where the food is; the Osu restaurants are where the expats are.

Getting around

• Uber and Bolt — cheap, everywhere, and the sensible default; agree nothing, the app has the price
• Trotro — the shared minibuses are how Accra moves, for a few cedis, if you can work out the hand signals
• Walking — the city is not built for it: few pavements, open drains, and heat
• Traffic — Accra jams solid twice a day and a five-kilometre trip can take an hour; plan around it
• Airport: Kotoka is inside the city, twenty minutes from most of it outside rush hour

Internet speed

Broadband here runs at 37% of the global median of 128 Mbps.

Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured May 2026

Must-see

Things to do

• Go to Cape Coast and Elmina, which is why most visitors come and is worth the day it takes
• Walk Jamestown with a local guide from the community
• Eat your way through a chop bar lunch
• Spend a Sunday afternoon at Labadi with half the city
• See the fantasy coffins made at Teshie
• Hear highlife and afrobeats live, which is the point of a Friday here

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

English (Ghana)

• WelcomeAkwaabaah-KWAH-ba
• Good morningMaakyemah-CHEH
• Good afternoonMaahamah-HA
• Thank youMedaasemeh-DAH-seh
• How are you?Wo ho te sɛn?wo ho teh SEN
• I am fineMe ho yɛmeh ho YEH
• Friend / mateChaleCHAH-leh
• How much?Ɛyɛ sɛn?eh-YEH sen
• GoodbyeYɛbɛhyiayeh-beh-SHEE-ah

English is the official language and is spoken everywhere, so this is about the local layer on top of it: Twi greetings, and the Ghanaian English that will be spoken back to you. "You are invited" said over a plate of food means join us, and refusing outright is rude — take a token mouthful.

Religion

Christian, with a large Muslim minority

Roughly 70% Christian and 20% Muslim, with traditional beliefs woven through both — a Pentecostal church and a shrine can operate on the same street without anyone finding it odd. Religion is public here: shops are named after scripture, Sunday services run for hours and are worth attending if you are invited, and the north is predominantly Muslim while the south is not.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Shake hands with everyone in the room, and learn the Ghanaian finger-snap handshake if it is offered
• Use your right hand for everything — eating, giving money, waving
• Say akwaaba back when you are welcomed, which will be constantly
• Ask before photographing people, especially at the slave castles, which are memorials rather than attractions
• Dress up rather than down: Ghanaians dress well and casual scruffiness reads as disrespect

Don't

• Do not use your left hand to hand over anything, including money
• Do not point with a finger or beckon palm-up; use the whole hand, palm down
• Do not treat Cape Coast and Elmina as sightseeing — they are the sites of an atrocity and people visit them to grieve
• Do not discuss Ghana-Nigeria jollof unless you are prepared for a long argument
• Do not assume a quoted price is fixed at a market, or that it is negotiable in a shop