Ghana: the guide for budget travellers

You can make your trip to Ghana as cheap budget or expensive as you like. While writing your travel itinerary it is very important to know how much money you want to spend. In this article we share some advice for budget travelers.

Flights to Accra Ghana

Flight tickets

Let’s start with the most important thing to get here: book your flight ticket. There are plenty airlines from Europe and America flying to Kotoka International Airport. So first of all check the flights from your nearest airport. In general flights with a transfer are cheaper than direct flights.

It is very useful to use a flight ticket search engine that shows different dates as well as different airports. If you live in The Netherlands for example, consider flying from Brussels airport as well. Flights (also direct flights) are mostly cheaper than from Amsterdam Schiphol.

Also check the flights with a long transfer, because maybe the transfer is long enough to add another trip to your trip. We did this in Lisbon. In the eight hours transfer on the way to Accra, we spend about five hours in the city. This is a way to visit a city you normally might wouldn’t visit.

If need help with you booking your flight, also check out our flight ticket support.

Accommodation

As said before there are a lot of really expensive places to stay at in Ghana. If you don’t have the budget for this, you might want to look for hostels (dorms), guesthouses and homestays. At those places a night will be around 10 – 20 euros, depending on location and facilities. Some accommodation includes breakfast and free Wi-Fi for example.

Especially in the big cities you can also take a look at Airbnb. This is very useful for when you are staying at one place for a longer period (at least a week, but rather a month) because then you get a lot of discount. Also Couchsurfing is a cheap (free) way to discover places, and even learn more about the Ghanaian culture. We haven’t tried this before, but of course will write about it once we did.

The accommodations in our e-book are all budget friendly, and even some come with a discount code.

Waakye: rice with beans, spaghetti, egg and sauce served in a leaf

Food

Of course you can eat in your hotel, and enjoy the food while watching the sunset on the beach. You can also save money and buy cheap (and delicious!) food from the street. In Ghana there are plenty of so called “chop bars”, where you can get rice and stew, jollof rice, indomie and other local dishes.

If you just want to have a snack, try out the vendors on the street and if you are travelling the ones selling around the traffic lights. Plantain chips, some nuts or an ice cream are super cheap but will fill your stomach for some time.

Transportation

The cheapest way to get around Ghana is using the public transportation. Trotros (minibuses) are everywhere, and for shorter distances you can use a shared taxi. For longer distances you can take a coach bus. Sometimes if you want to visit a bit more rural area (or tourist attraction) it is better to take a private taxi, and try to find people to join so you can share the costs.

In Accra and Kumasi you can also use Uber. Really recommended because you don’t have to bargain about the price, and if the driver understands GPS it won’t be difficult to find your destination.

Tours

Of course the benefit of taking a guided tour is that you don’t have to find out things yourself. If you are on a budget you might want to save money and spend it on other things. With a guide book or asking questions on a Facebook group you can try to write you own itinerary. If you need some help with writing, we can also do it for you.

Contact us if you have more questions about budget travelling in Ghana. See you in Ghana!

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