Getting around Ghana

Which option suits which trip

Most visitors to Ghana should hire a car with a driver for long routes, use ride-hailing or taxis inside Accra and Kumasi, and take a domestic flight only when the alternative is a full day behind the windscreen. Self-drive is legal and possible, but rarely the right call on a first visit.

The choice is less about comfort than about time. Ghana's distances look modest on a map and behave differently on the ground, where one stretch of roadworks adds an hour without warning.

If you are still shaping the route rather than the transport, our realistic seven-day Ghana itinerary sets out what fits in a week.

Driving yourself: possible, rarely advisable

You can rent a car and drive yourself in Ghana, and some visitors do it well, but on a first trip it usually costs more in stress than it saves in money. The roads are less the problem than the conventions around them.

Start with the paperwork. You need a licence recognised in Ghana, and most visitors carry an International Driving Permit alongside their home licence. Rules on how long a foreign licence stays valid here, and when it must be converted, do change — confirm the current position with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority before you book, not after you land.

Then the driving. What catches newcomers out:

• Unlit roads at night. Outside the cities there is often no street lighting and no reflective edge markings. Oncoming headlights on full beam do the rest.
• Unmarked speed bumps. Villages on the main highways use them heavily, and many are neither painted nor signed. Hitting one at speed is how hire cars get damaged.
• Potholes after rain. A road that was fine in January can have new holes by July, and standing water hides their depth.
• Livestock and people. Goats and cattle cross without looking, and highways run straight through trading towns.
• Motorbikes. They filter, overtake on both sides and appear in your mirror from nowhere.
• Informal right of way. A flash of headlights, a hand out of the window, the horn used as a greeting rather than a complaint — much of the negotiation on Ghanaian roads is unwritten, and it takes weeks to read fluently.

None of this makes driving here reckless. It makes it a skill local drivers have and you do not, and a two-week trip is no time to acquire it.

Hiring a car with a driver

A car with a driver is the default for visitors doing long routes in Ghana, and the driver matters far more than the vehicle. Someone who knows the road knows which fuel stations are reliable, where the checkpoints sit, which Kumasi junction to avoid at four in the afternoon, and when a detour beats the obvious road.

The vehicle still counts. A saloon is fine for the coastal road to Cape Coast and Takoradi; for the northern routes, Mole National Park and unsealed roads in the rains, a higher vehicle with real ground clearance earns its keep.

Hire the driver first. The car is the easier half of the decision.

A proper arrangement is written down before you set off and covers:

• Fuel. Who pays, and whether it is included in the daily figure or settled separately.
• The driver's meals and accommodation on overnight trips. This is normal and expected in Ghana. It should be stated plainly rather than appearing as a surprise in Tamale.
• Agreed daily hours. A working day has a start and an end. Say what happens when you want a late dinner or an early start beyond it.
• Breakdown cover. What happens if the vehicle fails two hours from anywhere: who sends a replacement, how long that takes, and who carries the cost of the delay.
• Tolls, parking and park charges for the vehicle, where they apply.

Ask for the arrangement itemised rather than as one number. It is the quickest way to see whether the person quoting has actually driven the route.

Trotros: how the country actually moves

Trotros are the shared minibuses that carry most people in Ghana most of the time, running fixed routes for a fixed fare and leaving when full rather than at a set time. They are cheap, everywhere, and a poor fit for luggage or a schedule.

Each carries a driver and a mate. The mate hangs from the door calling the destination, collects fares, makes change and decides where you sit. Hand signals matter too: a gesture out of the window tells waiting passengers where the vehicle is heading, and regulars read it from across the road.

They leave from stations — Circle, Tema Station, Kaneshie and Madina in Accra, with equivalents in every town — and from informal stops along the route. You get on, pay when the mate asks, and say "bus stop" when you want out.

The honest downsides: you wait until the vehicle fills, seats are tight, there is no air conditioning, a rucksack takes a paying seat, and a breakdown means standing at the roadside for the next one. For a short hop between towns, or a day in Accra carrying nothing, they are genuinely good. For four people and their bags on the day of a booked castle tour, they are not.

Taxis and ride-hailing

Ghanaian taxis work two ways, and knowing which one you are getting into is the whole trick. A shared taxi runs a fixed route and picks up other passengers until it is full; a dropping taxi takes you and only you, directly, for a fare you agree before you sit down.

Say "dropping" when you flag one down and the driver knows what you want. Then agree the fare — a stated figure, out loud, before the door closes. Negotiating at the destination with your bags already on the pavement is the weakest position in Ghanaian travel.

Ride-hailing apps operate in Accra and Kumasi and remove that conversation. The route is mapped, the fare is calculated, the driver's name and plate are on your screen, and payment goes through the app or in cash. For someone who has just landed and does not yet know what a reasonable fare looks like, that is worth a lot.

Coverage is the limit. Outside the two big cities the apps thin out fast, and at peak times or in heavy rain you may sit through several cancellations. Keep cash for a taxi as the fallback — our guide to cedis, cards and mobile money explains what to carry.

Intercity coaches on the main corridors

For Accra to Kumasi, Takoradi or Tamale, an air-conditioned intercity coach is the comfortable middle ground between a trotro and a private car. Seats are assigned, luggage goes in the hold, and departures run to a published time.

State and private operators run these corridors from terminals in Accra. Buy ahead for busy departures, particularly around Christmas, Easter and the big festivals, when Kumasi and Tamale seats go early.

The trade-off is rigidity. The coach goes where it goes and stops where it stops; it will not detour to a waterfall because you liked the look of the turning. If your route is a straight line between two cities, fine. If your trip is the stops, it is not.

Coaches also run overnight to the north. That saves a hotel night and puts you on unlit highway in the dark, which is a trade rather than a free win.

Domestic flights to Kumasi and Tamale

Flying Accra to Kumasi or Accra to Tamale saves the better part of a day each way, which on a short trip north is the difference between seeing Mole National Park properly and spending the holiday on the road. The flights are short — well under an hour and a half even to Tamale.

Carriers serve the domestic network from Kotoka's domestic terminal, and frequency on the Kumasi route is decent. Book directly with the airline and check the schedule again close to your date: domestic timetables here change, and routes are added and dropped.

The caveat people skip is the ground leg at the far end. Tamale is the airport for Mole, but the park is still several hours' drive from the terminal on a road that has improved without becoming quick. Flying north delivers you to the start of the drive, not to the elephants. Our Mole National Park guide sets out how that day runs.

Arrange the onward vehicle before you fly. Landing at midday and then looking for a car is how people lose the afternoon they just bought.

Realistic road times, and why departure timing beats distance

Plan journeys from Accra by time rather than distance, and add an hour to anything starting after eight in the morning. These are approximate driving times in normal conditions, excluding stops.

Treat these as honest averages rather than promises. Rain, a diversion or a broken-down truck changes the arithmetic, and the northern figures move the most.

Inside Accra, when you leave matters more than how far you are going. A cross-city journey that takes 25 minutes at half past six can take an hour and a half at half past eight, and the road has not changed.

The pattern is predictable: weekday mornings tighten from around half past six until nine, and the evening peak runs from late afternoon until after seven. Friday afternoons are the worst of the week, and rain compounds it.

Leaving Accra at six rather than eight is the cheapest upgrade on any Ghana itinerary.

That is why every serious itinerary starts its long drives early. The same logic applies to Kumasi on a smaller scale, and to any market town on its market day — ask a local driver which day that is before routing through it.

Road safety, children and older relatives

The most useful safety decision in Ghana is to avoid long-distance road travel after dark; the second is to choose the driver rather than the vehicle. Most of the rest follows from those two.

Habits worth keeping:

• Wear the seatbelt in every seat, and check before you book that the rear belts actually work.
• Do not take an overnight drive to save a hotel night on a route you have not seen in daylight.
• Keep a paper note of your driver's name and plate number somewhere other than your phone.
• Build stops into any drive over three hours. A tired driver is a bigger risk than a rough road.
• Keep valuables out of sight at junctions and in slow traffic.

Travelling with children

Child seats are not standard in Ghanaian hire vehicles or taxis, so if you need one, ask in writing well in advance and confirm again the week you travel. Break long routes in half — Accra to Cape Coast with a proper stop rather than Accra to Takoradi in one push — and carry more water than seems reasonable, because the heat and the air conditioning together dehydrate children fast.

Travelling with older relatives

Ghana is a generous country for older visitors and a demanding one for anyone with bad knees. Choose a vehicle that is easy to climb into rather than the most impressive one, ask for the front seat, and plan shorter driving days with an afternoon rest built in. Many heritage sites have steps and uneven ground; ask about access before you arrive rather than at the gate. Our Ghana travel guide covers planning around pace.

How we sort transport for visitors

Ghana Travel & Tour runs cars with drivers out of Kasoa and Accra, from Kotoka airport pickups to multi-day routes north to Tamale and Mole. We match the vehicle to the road rather than to the photograph, and the driver to the route, which on the northern runs matters more than anything else on the invoice.

Every quote we send is itemised — vehicle, days, fuel, the driver's meals and accommodation on overnight trips, tolls and park charges — and comes from a named trip manager you can reach directly on WhatsApp. If you would rather see the vehicles and terms first, our airport pickups and car hire with drivers page lays it out.

Questions people ask