What to actually pack for Ghana

Pack for problems, not for a list

The most useful way to pack for Ghana is to work through the six things the country will actually do to you — heat, sun, mosquitoes, power cuts, dress codes and rough ground underfoot — and pack the answer to each. A list copied from a generic tropical guide will give you four pairs of shoes and no torch.

Ghana is warm all year. The difference between seasons is rain and haze rather than temperature, so there is no month in which you need a coat. If your dates are not fixed yet, our month-by-month guide to the best time to visit Ghana is worth reading before you pack, because a June trip and a January trip ask for slightly different bags.

One more principle: pack light and expect to buy. Accra and Kumasi have supermarkets, pharmacies and markets that sell almost everything you would carry from home, usually cheaper. The things worth the suitcase space are the things that are awkward to replace mid-trip.

Clothes for heat and humidity

Bring loose clothes in natural fabrics and bring more changes than you think you need. Cotton and linen move air and dry out; polyester and nylon trap heat against you and start to smell by mid-afternoon.

The mistake is underestimating how many outfits a day costs you. Walking around Makola, sitting in traffic on the Spintex Road or climbing anything at all will leave you wet through, and you will often want to change before dinner. Plan on roughly one and a half sets of clothes per day for a short trip, or pack for half the trip and use a laundry service, which most hotels and serviced homes offer.

Quick-drying underwear and socks are the one place where technical fabric earns its place, because you can rinse them in a sink at night and wear them the next day. Light colours are cooler than dark ones and hide sweat better. A light long-sleeved shirt is not a contradiction in the heat — it keeps sun off your arms and doubles as your dusk layer.

Rain, when it comes, is heavy and brief rather than all-day drizzle. A packable rain jacket is fine for May and June, but an umbrella is more useful and you can buy one on any street corner.

Sun and water

Ghana sits a few degrees north of the equator, so the sun comes almost straight down in the middle of the day and burns faster than the temperature suggests. Bring high-factor sunscreen, a hat with a brim and proper sunglasses, and reapply the sunscreen more often than you would at home because sweat removes it.

The thing visitors get wrong is treating shade as protection. Under a beach umbrella at Labadi or one of the western beaches, light reflecting off sand and water will still burn you, and an overcast Harmattan sky with its dust haze burns people who assumed a grey day was safe. Sunscreen is sold in Accra pharmacies, but the range is narrower and the price higher than at home, so if you have a brand your skin agrees with, bring it.

Water

Do not plan to drink from the tap. Either bring a filter bottle you trust or get into the habit of buying sealed bottled water, which is sold everywhere and kept cold in almost every shop and fuel station.

Sachet water — half a litre in a sealed plastic sachet, bitten open at the corner — is what most people around you will be drinking. It is cheap, widely available and convenient in a car, and a bag of them in a cool box is the normal way to keep a group hydrated on a long drive north. Carry more than feels necessary; the heat dehydrates you quietly, and the first sign is usually a headache you blame on something else.

Mosquitoes and bite prevention

Bite prevention is the part of Ghana packing that travellers reliably under-do, and it is the part that matters most. Mosquitoes here are most active from dusk into the night, so the single most effective thing in your bag is a pair of long light trousers and a long-sleeved shirt to change into at sundown.

Add an insect repellent for exposed skin, ankles and feet especially, since that is where bites happen when you are sitting outside at a chop bar. Many hotels and homes provide nets or plug-in units; if you are unsure what your accommodation has, ask before you arrive rather than after.

Covering up at dusk does more than anything else you can buy.

Anti-malarial medication is a separate matter and a conversation for a travel clinic, not for a packing article. Book that appointment early, because the same visit covers your yellow fever vaccination and certificate, which Ghana checks on arrival. Take any medical questions — what to take, how your existing prescriptions interact, what to do about a child — to a qualified clinician.

Power, plugs and charging

Ghana uses the UK-style three-pin plug at 230 volts, so British and Irish visitors need no adapter at all and travellers from the United States, Canada and most of Europe need one. Buy two, because adapters get left in sockets.

A power bank is close to essential. You will be out for long days, using your phone for photos, maps and mobile money, and there is rarely a socket in a car or at a viewpoint. A small multi-way extension lead is the quietly brilliant item most people never think of: it turns one hotel socket into four, which matters when a family arrives with six devices and finds two outlets behind the bed.

Power cuts happen. They are usually short, and hotels and many homes run generators, but the lights will go out at some point during a two-week trip. That is the real reason for the power bank and the torch, rather than any worry about the trip itself.

Dress codes and why they matter here

Pack modest clothing and at least one smart outfit. Churches, mosques, funerals, chiefs' palaces and rural communities all expect covered shoulders and knees, and in a mosque you will also want something for your head and shoes you can slip off easily.

Beyond the rules, there is the plain fact that Ghanaians dress well. People turn out neatly for work, for church and above all for funerals, which are major social events you may well be invited to if you have family here. Scruffy zip-off trousers and a faded festival T-shirt stand out far more in Accra than they would in Bangkok or Lisbon.

A wrap or a long skirt for women and a collared shirt with trousers for men will cover almost every situation. If you are invited to something and arrive without anything suitable, tailors work fast and cloth is easy to buy, which is how a good number of visitors end up with a made-to-measure outfit as their souvenir. Our Ghana travel guide goes further into what to expect socially.

Feet, documents and the small things

Bring two kinds of footwear and no more: sandals you can wear all day in the city, and closed shoes with real grip for anywhere with a slope or a wet root. Kakum's approach path, the climb to the upper falls at Wli and any attempt on Afadja are all done in proper shoes, not flip-flops.

Documents

Carry your passport with its visa, your yellow fever certificate and your travel insurance details. Make two sets of copies — one printed, one photographed on your phone or stored online — and keep the printed set somewhere separate from the originals. If anything goes missing, that separation is what turns a crisis into an errand.

Small things that matter more than they sound

• A torch or a headtorch, for power cuts and for unlit compounds at night.
• Tissues and hand sanitiser, because public toilets frequently have neither soap nor paper.
• Small denomination cedi notes, since taxi drivers and market traders rarely have change for large ones.
• A rubber doorstop or a small padlock, if that is the sort of thing that helps you sleep in unfamiliar rooms.
• Gifts, if you are visiting family. Something modest and personal from where you live is worth more than anything expensive.
• A day bag that closes properly and sits in front of you in a crowd.

What to leave at home

Some things are worse than useless in a Ghanaian suitcase. The drone is the important one: do not bring a drone without written permission from the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, and never assume you can fly it near an airport, a government building or a castle. Confirm the current rules with the Authority directly before you travel.

Camouflage-patterned clothing is restricted to the military in Ghana, as in several countries in the region. That includes camo shorts, caps and children's clothes, and it is not a distinction worth testing at a checkpoint.

• Expensive jewellery and watches. They attract attention you do not want and you will not wear them.
• Too many shoes. Two pairs plus something for the shower is plenty.
• Heavy toiletries. Shampoo, soap, toothpaste and sunscreen are all sold in Accra supermarkets. Bring a few days' worth and restock.
• A hairdryer. You will not use it, and it is heavy.
• Anything you would be upset to lose. That applies anywhere, but it is worth saying.

Almost nothing you forget is unavailable in Accra. Almost everything you overpack will stay in the case.

The checklist, by category

Here is the same advice in a form you can tick off the night before you fly.

Where we come in

Most packing questions are really questions about the itinerary: what you need depends on whether you are spending four days in Accra or driving to Mole. When Ghana Travel & Tour plans a trip we tell you plainly what each day asks of your bag — the closed shoes for the forest, the smart outfit for the funeral you have been invited to, the extension lead for a family room. You can see how we build routes on our guided tours page. Quotes are itemised, with nothing hidden in a total, and they come from a named trip manager you can reach directly.

Questions people ask