With miles of palm lined white sand beaches, glorious national parks, and the ruined fortifications of the slave trade era adding a touch of reality, Ghana is a surprising, safe, and easy country to visit. It's a solidly religious mixture of the old and the modern, where you'll find people chatting on mobile phones whilst making offering to the gods.
The southern half of the country is divided by the world's largest artificial lake, more than 200 miles in length, created by damming the Volta River in the 1960's. To the north is the Mole National Park, Ghana's largest. Organised, accompanied tours are the only way you are permitted to enter, but there is a wealth of wildlife including elephant, wart-hogs, and inquisitive groups of baboons.
Ghana is a country that loves its music, especially around the times of the Odwira Festival. The cheerful, ever smiling population will burst into song, clap their hands, and begin dancing around at the slightest of opportunities.
The coastal areas are popular for the beautiful beaches washed by the warm waters of Gulf of Guinea . Those closer to Accra can get busy, but you don't have to travel far to find delightfully empty regions, where you'll share a paradise shoreline with just a few friendly fishermen mending their nets, and the obligatory loud reggae music. At Cape Coast you can see the restored castles and colonial buildings from the days when the slave trade made Ghana a rich country. It's a good place from which to travel a few miles inland to the Kakum National Park , where you'll need your head for heights. It's a wildlife park for the tree tops, and the breathtaking Canopy Walkway links a succession of high viewing platforms with some exhilarating rope bridge crossings.
