Getting Around Ghana

Vanef STC
Between Accra and all major cities within Ghana and some neighboring countries, you can take Vanef STC, Ghana's safest, most reliable transportation from city to city. Unfortunately this speaks nothing of timeliness, for STC is known for delays. Nonetheless, they are rarely involved in road accidents and the cost of getting from one end of Ghana to its opposite end can be as inexpensive as $7. Here are a list of rates to the most traveled areas:

Destinations:

*
* Tamale (upper northern region, by Mole Natl. Park) $7
* Kumasi (Ghana's second largest city) $4
* Cape Coast (Home of the slave dungeons) $1.75
* Takoradi (Coastal town) $2.50
* Ho (The beautiful Volta region) $1.50

Please note that once you arrive to the city station, you will probably incur another charge of approximately $3 to your exact address.

Contact:

* Phone: 233-21-221-912
* stc@ghana.com
* www.vanef-stc.com

Taxis and tro-tros

No trip to Ghana would be complete without a chauffer driven ride in our humble chariots. Known, probably, as the worst drivers in the world, Ghana's taxi and tro-tro drivers maneuver through Accra's busy streets with menacing agility, giving new reason for road rage. Yet and still they are cheap and in abundance. One can get from one end of town to its opposite, in a packed tro-tro (mini-van) for 50 cents and in your private taxi the same ride might cost $3. Either way, it is part of the Ghana experience.

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Just a highlight of what you can see to the Togo border from Accra. We hired a taxi and it cost $80 U.S. including gas. We had to haggle down. Worth the money. Comfort, snappy service and great views.

A taxi to the border will cost you about $80. We negotiated HARD (they started at $100 and we only got it down to $80) but we had a couple cards decked against us. One was being in an upscale hotel, being a tourist and seeming like we had money (which they said, not us). I'm sure if you had come across a taxi person on your own you could get it cheaper.

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Delta flies non-stop from JFK to Accra (United will be starting shortly from IAD) KLM and a number of other carriers fly from their hubs in Europe. Ethiopian and Air Namibia to name a few fly from points in Africa. Local air service is limited here and tickets to Abidjan are not cheap.....Virgin Nigeria which has since been sold and go through a name change flies to nearby Lagos.

The airport is pretty straight fwd, no jetways so you either walk to from your plane or are bused. After Nigerian bomb incident on the flight to Detroit security has become a lengthy process. Get here at least 3 hours prior to your flight if you are headed to Europe or the US. The souvenir shopping in the airport is a bit limited along with food. If you are headed back to the US eat up/use the WC in the main gate area as there is no food in the gate area which you have to go through a comperhensive search (there are two lines..one for men and another for women) The womens line is the slowest..sorry ladies. If you have to use the WC once inside the gate area you will get to take another trip through the security line....might want to hold it till you get on the plane if you can

One thing I hate about traveling is your first experience is often getting ripped of by a cab at the airport. The cabbies here are what I would consider the least agressive on the continent. They understand the word no and will not pester you. If you arrive during the daylight hours..we got in around 7am from JFK so we huffed it to catch a tro tro (shared local bus). You exit the airport arrivals hall, hang a left and walk down a 100 or so yards and hang a right to walk down another long street that leads to/from the airport from Liberation Road where you can catch a tro tro or a cheaper cab. Make sure you walk past the first traffic circle as the road here is light on traffic. All of the tro tros will be stopping on Liberation. The touts will hang there heads/torsos out yelling the destination. The main tro tro station is Kaneshie and from here you can catch a shared ride to just about anywhere in either a beat up junker or a newer Ford Econoline van with ac. The ride should cost around 50 cents. If you have a bag put it in your lap as they will charge you for another person if you put it on the seat next to you....a whole dollar big deal right? If you are arriving at night I would take a cab (Ghana is very safe but there are opportunists in every country)...check with a local on your flight to find out what a fair price is and be prepared to haggle a bit with the cab drivers.....some are more honest than others. We experience the full spectrum here.

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to travel around it is best to go by an experienced tour agent
after chosing Abacar we were happy with this company..they are fair in price, flexible..always follow your wishes likes and dislikes and are very reliable

for tours in the south you can go by normal car
by roads to inland..like to mole np. a 4wd car is absolut necessary

DONT - the roads are mad!!!! The taxis aren't the best either, one of mine broke down in middle of roundabout and everyone laughed. The traffic around Accra is like rush hour all day. If taking the journey by car or bus from Accra to the Gold Coast beware as you leave Accra so too do you leave the road behind and it is no more than a dirt track not to be taken if you suffer even slightly from travel sickness! If going to Kumasi - fly - but my other half when working in Accra often flies home to catch another European flight to Kumasi so little does he trust the internal airlines

Don't assume you can just hop on the next bus out of Accra. On Saturdays, particularly, you may find, as I did, that though you've arrived at the station early enough for the first bus to Cape Coast, there are no seats before 4 pm! Even when I tried to buy a ticket to Takoradi instead (you have to pay full fare even if you stop in Cape Coast, but the difference is small by western standards), there was no bus before 2 30, though this is a frequent service. So buy your ticket a day in advance!

(In the event, I got to the station at 2 pm to wait for the 4 pm bus - as I'd been told - and the brisk ticket lady put me on an earlier bus to Cape Coast and even refunded the CC-Takoradi part of my ticket, bless her. I got on the bus and naively looked for a seat - to general mirth. Finallly, somebody unfolded a seat into the middle of the aisle! )