Wa and the Upper West Region

Why almost nobody goes

The Upper West receives fewer visitors than any other region in Ghana, and the explanation is entirely practical: it is far from Accra, it is off every established tourist route, and the roads that reach it are long. None of that is a judgement on the place itself.

Look at how trips get built and the pattern is obvious. A first visit to Ghana runs Accra, Cape Coast, Kakum, sometimes Kumasi. A second or third visit adds the Volta Region or Mole. Mole sits in the Savannah Region, which is already a serious drive, and from Mole most people turn round rather than carrying on west and north into the Upper West. The region is past the point where an itinerary naturally stops.

Tourism infrastructure has followed that demand, or rather has not. There are hotels in Wa and community guesthouses at Wechiau and a few other places, and after that you are relying on whatever a district capital offers. No tour company runs a scheduled circuit here. Guides are arranged locally, in person, by telephone.

The result is a region where you are a genuine novelty rather than a revenue stream, where nobody has learned a patter for visitors, and where the interactions are consequently different. That is the honest argument for coming. It is not an argument that works for everybody, and if what you want is comfort and a smooth day, the Upper West will frustrate you.

Where the region sits and what it looks like

The Upper West occupies Ghana's north-western corner: Burkina Faso along the northern border, the Black Volta running down the western edge with Côte d'Ivoire beyond it, the Savannah Region to the south and the Upper East to the east. Wa, the capital, sits roughly in the middle of it.

The landscape is savannah that gets drier and more open as you go north — Guinea savannah in the south of the region shading into something closer to Sudan savannah near the border. Baobabs stand out of the grass. Shea trees are everywhere and shea butter processing is a real part of the rural economy, done by women's groups in most villages. The horizon is long and low.

People are Dagaaba, Waala, Sissala, Lobi and Birifor, among others, and the linguistic map is more fragmented than it is in the south. Islam and Christianity both have deep roots here, alongside traditional practice, and in many communities all three are present within the same extended family. Wa itself is a substantially Muslim town.

Compounds rather than houses are the built form. A family lives inside a walled earth compound with flat or domed roofs, granaries, and an internal courtyard, and the whole arrangement makes sense the moment you stand inside one in the heat of the afternoon.

Getting to Wa, honestly

There are two realistic ways into the Upper West and both take most of a day. The first is the direct road route from Accra through Kumasi, Techiman, Wenchi, Bole and Sawla to Wa. The second is to fly Accra to Tamale, which takes about an hour, then drive west through Damongo, Larabanga, Sawla and Wa, which is roughly five hours.

The flight-plus-drive is what I would recommend to almost anyone with limited time. It removes an entire day of road each way, it puts you within reach of Mole on the same leg, and Tamale is where you can actually hire a decent vehicle. Domestic schedules and fares change, so check them directly with the airline rather than relying on a timetable you read somewhere.

Driving the whole way from Accra is a two-day job done properly, with an overnight in Kumasi or Techiman. The Kumasi–Techiman–Wenchi stretch is straightforward. Beyond Bole the road has been improved in sections and is rougher in others, and conditions change year to year, so ask locally rather than assuming what you read is current.

Long-distance coaches run Accra to Wa overnight and they are cheap, but the journey is long, the air conditioning is fierce, and you arrive at dawn with a day of travel still ahead of you. There is an airstrip at Wa but no regular commercial passenger service you can plan around, so do not build an itinerary on the assumption of flying in.

The Wa Naa's Palace

The Wa Naa's Palace is the seat of the paramount chief of the Waala and the principal sight in the town — a long earth-built facade with buttresses, conical pinnacles and small windows, in the Sudano-Sahelian tradition that runs up through Burkina Faso to Mali. It is the largest example of that architecture in the region.

The building is a working palace rather than a museum, and that governs how you visit. There is a protocol: you present yourself, you are received or you are not, and photography of certain areas may not be permitted. Going with a local guide who can make the introduction is not an optional refinement, it is how access works. Dress properly — long trousers or a long skirt, shoulders covered — and remove your hat.

Alongside the palace is the Wa Naa's museum, a small collection of regalia, instruments, textiles and historical material relating to the Waala state. It is modest and the labelling is limited, and the value is largely in what the person showing you round tells you.

The condition of the palace has varied over the years, as it must — earth architecture requires continual re-plastering after each rainy season, and when that maintenance lapses the building suffers visibly. Some visitors arrive expecting a monument and find a building in the middle of being repaired. That is the nature of the form rather than neglect.

Wa as a town and a base

Wa is a compact regional capital that works well as a base and poorly as a destination, and you should plan two nights here and spend your days outside it. It has hotels with generators and air conditioning, banks and ATMs, fuel, a university, and a market that runs on the traditional six-day cycle with a larger gathering on market day.

The market is where the region makes sense. Shea butter sold by the basin, guinea fowl, smoked fish brought up from the Volta, dawadawa in dark fermented balls, cloth, enamelware, and the hand-woven smocks — fugu — that are the northern male garment. Smocks made here are heavier and more loosely woven than the Ashanti equivalents, and buying one in Wa costs a fraction of what the same thing costs in an Accra boutique.

Food is simple and good. Tuo zaafi with ayoyo or dried okra soup is the everyday meal, guinea fowl grilled over charcoal is the thing to order in the evening, and pito, the millet beer, is drunk from calabashes in the pito bars in the non-Muslim quarters. Restaurant culture as an Accra visitor would recognise it does not really exist.

Practical points: draw cash in Wa, because ATMs beyond it are unreliable; fill the tank in Wa, because fuel stations thin out fast; and buy water in quantity. Mobile signal is decent in town and patchy outside it, with coverage varying by network.

The Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary

Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary is the Upper West's best-known attraction — a community-owned reserve along a stretch of the Black Volta about two hours south-west of Wa, where hippos live in the river and visitors go out by dugout canoe to look for them. It is one of only two hippo sanctuaries in Ghana.

The structure of it matters. The sanctuary was established by the communities along the river themselves, the land remains theirs, and the revenue goes into local projects rather than to an outside operator. You check in at the visitor centre, take a guide, and go on from there to the riverside. That arrangement is the reason the hippos are still there.

The canoe trip goes out in the early morning or late afternoon, when hippos are in the water and visible as eyes and ears rather than as whole animals. Sightings depend on the season and the water level, and in the high-water months the animals disperse and can be hard to find. No guide will promise you hippos, and anyone who does is not being straight with you.

Go anyway. The river itself is worth the trip — Côte d'Ivoire on the far bank, fishermen, birds along the fringing gallery forest, and the quiet. There is community accommodation at the sanctuary, including sleeping on a raised platform under a mosquito net on a compound roof, which is the coolest and most memorable option and also the most basic.

Nobody can guarantee a hippo. The river will be worth the drive regardless.

Gwollu, Lawra and the far north

North of Wa the region divides into two roads, and both lead to places worth the drive. Gwollu, near the Burkina border in the Sissala district, has the remains of a defensive wall built to protect the town from slave raiders, and it is one of the few physical records in Ghana of communities defending themselves rather than being captured.

The wall is not a spectacle. Sections of earth rampart survive in a landscape that has grown over much of it, and what you are looking at needs someone to explain it. Seen after Cape Coast or Elmina, it changes the shape of the story: the coastal forts are the far end of a system that started with raids on towns like this one, and Gwollu is where a community said no.

The other road runs north-east to Lawra and Nandom, Dagaaba country along the Black Volta. Lawra hosts the Kobine festival and Nandom the Kakube festival, both harvest celebrations with xylophone music, dancing and large gatherings, held around the same part of the year — confirm the exact dates locally, because they move. The gyil, the Dagaara xylophone, is one of the great instruments of West Africa and hearing it played properly in its own place is not a small thing.

Roads out here are a mixture of surfaced and laterite, and the laterite sections after rain are slow. Fill up before you leave Wa, carry water, and make sure the spare tyre has actually been checked rather than assumed.

Combining the Upper West with Mole

Mole National Park and the Upper West fit together well because the road from Tamale to Wa runs past the Mole turn-off, which means you can do both on one northern leg without backtracking. Damongo, the town at the park gate, is roughly on the way.

A route that works is Tamale to Mole with a night or two at the park, then west through Larabanga and Sawla to Wa for two nights, then back east or on to the Upper East. Larabanga's mosque is a few minutes from the park gate and slots in without costing a morning.

The park is a different kind of day from anything in the Upper West: walking safaris with an armed ranger, elephants at the waterhole below the escarpment, antelope and baboons around the accommodation. Booking matters in the dry season, when rooms fill. Our guide to Mole National Park covers the safaris, the timing and where to sleep.

Be realistic about the driving. Mole to Wa is a half-day with stops, on a road that is good in parts and rough in others. Doing Mole and Wechiau in the same day is not sensible and people who try it spend the day in the car.

Linking to the Upper East

The natural continuation from the Upper West is east into the Upper East, and the cross-country route from Wa via Tumu to Navrongo and Bolgatanga makes a northern loop possible rather than an out-and-back. It is a long day's drive and the road condition varies, so ask in Wa before committing to it.

What that loop buys you is the rest of the north's best sites in one run. Navrongo has its mud-built Catholic cathedral with painted interior walls. Sirigu, north of Bolgatanga, has the painted compound architecture that the region is known for. Paga, on the Burkina border, has the sacred crocodile ponds and, a few kilometres away, Pikworo Slave Camp.

Bolgatanga's market is where Ghana's straw baskets are traded at source, woven from split and dyed elephant grass in the villages around the town. Buying there gives you a range of shapes you will never see in Accra, and the baskets crush in a suitcase, so buy late and carry them by hand. Our guide to Paga and the Upper East covers that corner in detail.

The alternative to the loop is to return the way you came to Tamale and fly out. That costs you the Upper East but saves a hard driving day, and with a week rather than ten days it is usually the right call.

Seasons, heat and Harmattan

The practical window for the Upper West is the dry season from roughly November to March, and within it the character of the region changes considerably from month to month. The north has one long wet season through the middle of the year rather than the south's two, so the pattern here is not the one you learn in Accra.

December and January bring Harmattan, and in the Upper West it arrives earlier and harder than on the coast. The dry north-easterly off the Sahara fills the air with dust, flattens every long view, and drops night temperatures far enough that you will want a blanket — which almost nobody packs for Ghana. Lips crack. Throats dry. Photography suffers badly on hazy days.

March and April are the hottest weeks of the year here and the heat is a different order from anything on the coast. Middle-of-the-day activity is not sensible; plan around early mornings and late afternoons and accept losing the middle of the day to shade. The rains break somewhere around May and run through to September or October.

The wet months make the region green and the birdlife spectacular, and they also make laterite roads slow and some crossings difficult. Hippo sightings at Wechiau are generally harder when the river is high. Our guide to the best time to visit Ghana sets out how the northern and southern seasons differ.

What the Upper West asks of you

Travel here asks for time, tolerance and preparation, in that order, and it is worth being clear about each before you commit. This is the part of the article where you decide whether the region is for you.

Time first. Four or five days is the realistic minimum for the Upper West as a leg in its own right, and that assumes flying to Tamale rather than driving from Accra. Anything less and you are driving through the region rather than being in it.

Tolerance next. Accommodation outside Wa is basic: mosquito nets, bucket showers, fans if there is power, power cuts that are routine rather than exceptional. Food choice is limited and the same three or four dishes recur. Distances between places of interest are long and the middle of the day is too hot to do much with.

Preparation last, and here is what actually matters:

• A vehicle with clearance — a Fortuner, a Prado or similar — rather than a saloon
• Cash in cedis drawn in Wa or Tamale, because ATMs elsewhere are unreliable and cards are not accepted
• A full tank leaving Wa, and the habit of refilling at every town rather than when the gauge says so
• Yellow fever certificate, malaria precautions and a proper first-aid kit — hospitals are in Wa, not in the villages
• A checked spare tyre, a jack you have actually seen, and drinking water for more than the day you planned
• Modest dress, particularly around the palace, mosques and village compounds

Our guide to northern Ghana as a whole covers the wider region, and the Ghana travel guide deals with health, money and documents in detail.

How we arrange an Upper West trip

Ghana Travel & Tour puts the Upper West together as a private multi-day journey rather than a fixed departure, because the region does not work any other way. That usually means flights to Tamale, a Fortuner or Prado with a driver who has done the Sawla road, nights at Mole and in Wa, the Wechiau booking made in advance through the sanctuary, and local guides arranged for the palace and the river.

Our tours page shows how the multi-day routes are built. Quotes are itemised so the flights, the vehicle, the guiding and the accommodation each appear separately, and one named trip manager handles the whole thing from first enquiry to the drive back.

Questions people ask