Things to do in Accra

Neighborhood · Old Accra, coast

The oldest part of the city — a working Ga fishing community around a colonial lighthouse and two forts.

Local tip: Go with a guide from the community rather than wandering with a camera; several run walking tours from the lighthouse. The Chale Wote street art festival takes over these streets every year.

Landmark · Central Accra, High Street

The mausoleum and museum of Ghana's first president, on the spot where he declared independence in 1957.

Local tip: The museum was substantially redeveloped and is far better than it was a decade ago. Go for the personal effects and the photographs rather than the monument itself.

Nightlife · Osu

The densest strip of bars, restaurants and late-night life in the city, running down toward the coast.

Local tip: Oxford Street itself is the tourist face of Osu. The better eating is on the side streets — Lokko Road and the lanes off it — and the crowd there is far more local.

Food · Central Accra

The city's great trading market, run overwhelmingly by women, selling everything from cloth to dried fish.

Local tip: The market women are the backbone of Accra's economy and have real political weight. Go early, go with a local, and buy your kente and wax print here rather than in a hotel shop.

Culture · Cantonments

The house where Du Bois lived out his last years as a Ghanaian citizen, with his library and grave in the garden.

Local tip: Small, quiet and unmissable if you want to understand why Accra became the centre of the diaspora-return movement. It is a ten-minute walk from Cantonments and almost never crowded.

Nature · Achimota, north-west

A large remnant of forest inside the city, part of it opened as a public park after years of contested development plans.

Local tip: Genuinely rare — several hundred hectares of tree cover inside a West African capital, with walking trails and cooler air. It is the best place in Accra to run without traffic, and most residents have never been.