Kumasi

Currency budget Ghana

The cedi moves, so change in small amounts and check the rate the day you do it. Forex bureaux in Adum beat the banks. Kente from Bonwire and Adanwomase is priced in cedis and bargained for, and the price of a full cloth is a serious sum — know what you want to spend before you go.

ATMs & cards

Stanbic, Absa, Ecobank and GCB have machines in Adum and in the malls; use one inside a branch or a mall, by day. Expect a low limit per withdrawal. MTN MoMo is how the market and the taxis are paid, and a tourist SIM can carry it.

MTN MoMo pays for almost everything in the market and the taxis. Forex bureaux in Adum 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 all of Ghana

Kumasi is friendly and most visits are untroubled, but the UK FCDO notes that criminal kidnaps of foreign nationals have happened in Kumasi, as in Accra and Takoradi, and that robbery has risen since 2021 — use arranged transport after dark rather than walking, and do not travel by road outside the main towns at night. Kejetia is crowded enough for pickpockets: carry little, and keep your phone in a front pocket. Traffic is the everyday risk.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa Ghana visa rules

Health & emergencies all of Ghana

Required to enter

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

Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Fufu with light soup or groundnut soup is the Asante meal, eaten with the right hand at a chop bar at lunchtime, and the pounding of it is the sound of the city. Also kontomire stew, ampesi, and kelewele — spiced fried plantain — at night. Kumasi’s chop bars are among the best in the country.

Nightlife

Ghana’s second city has a real weekend — the guitar-band highlife of the Asante country is played here, and the city’s own drill scene put "Kumerica" on the map.

• Ahodwo, Kumasi — the lounges, hotel bars and smarter restaurants
• Adum, Kumasi — the centre, and the chop bars and spots around it

Closing: Late at the weekend, into the small hours; quiet in the week.

Use a Bolt or a known driver home rather than walking, which is the local habit too.

Getting around

• Taxi — shared ones run fixed routes for a few cedis; a charter costs more and goes where you say, so agree the fare first
• Tro-tro — the minibuses leave from Kejetia and the other stations for every town around, and for the craft villages
• Bolt and Uber — both work in Kumasi and remove the negotiation
• Bus — VIP and STC coaches to Accra, five hours or more depending on the traffic
• Air — Accra to Kumasi is about forty-five minutes, against most of a day on the road
• Airport: Prempeh I (KMS), twenty minutes from the centre, with domestic flights only

eSIM

A data eSIM for Ghana, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:Works hereWorks hereRevolutIn the app

Must-see

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

English (Ghana)

• WelcomeAkwaabaah-KWAH-ba
• Good morningMaakyemah-CHEH
• Good afternoonMaahamah-HA
• Thank youMedaasemeh-DAH-seh

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