🇬🇧 London Heathrow → 🇬🇭 Accra · 2 weeks

Climb the Jamestown Lighthouse at 6 AM before the heat arrives — the view over the old fishing harbour, with wooden pirogues heading out to sea, is one of the great free moments in West Africa. A local guide (arrange through the neighbourhood association) adds the human layer that makes it unforgettable.

Visit the W.E.B. Du Bois Center on a Saturday morning — the memorial and library are calm and deeply moving, with the graves of Du Bois and his wife in the garden. Then walk ten minutes to the Arts Centre for National Culture to spend an hour watching kente weavers at work and bargaining for fabric directly from the weaver.

Eat banku and tilapia at a roadside chop bar — look for one with plastic stools and a smoking grill, not a printed menu. The Osu neighbourhood around Oxford Street has several. Pair it with a bag of chilled bissap (hibiscus) juice from a street vendor for the full experience.

Go to Labadi Beach on a weekday, not a weekend — the entrance fee is a couple of dollars, the atmosphere is a social pageant, and the grilled fish with shito pepper sauce is exceptional. On Sundays the beach gets extremely crowded; Wednesday evenings have live music.