Tourism

Cape Coast and Elmina Excursion

This 2.5-hour drive takes conference participants to Elmina and Cape Coast, a twin-city that holds two important slave forts right on the Atlantic Ocean in the Central Region of Ghana. Tour guides will take you through the castle/s and show you the passages through which the ancestors of many Blacks in the Diaspora came. The tour will take place on AUGUST 4, 2009. Buses will leave Accra at dawn (specific place and time will be announced later). The cost of the trip, including lunch, is $110 (Cape Coast, Elmina and Kakum National Park).

See photos of Elmina Castle HERE

Kakum National Park

The tour will also take you to Kakum National Park, a 45-minute drive from Elmina. The park has a canopy walk, understandably the only canopy walk on the African continent. If time allows, conference participants could spend time at one of Elmina's beautiful beaches (e.g. Coco Beach). Depending upon the availability of time, our visit to Cape Coast could also include a tour of Cape Coast's high schools, some of the most  prestigious in the nation.

Aburi Botanical Gardens

Aburi is a small town in the Akwapim hills, about 40 minutes away from the University of Ghana. The drive leading to the town is picturesque and scenic, with lush rolling hills all the way. There is a restaurant right in the garden. Aburi also has an arts-and-crafts market, where you can shop abundantly, with reasonable prices.

See photos of Aburi Botanical Gardens HERE

Private Tourism

Unless participants have their own transportation, other long-distance tourism is not encouraged. Still, one can always form a small group and hire a taxi (no more than $30) or rent a car with a driver (about $60 plus gas) and visit the Aburi Botanical Gardens, a small town 30 minutes away from the University of Ghana campus. The drive there offers beautiful scenery with rolling hills. The garden itself is attractive and has a restaurant right inside the garden. Entry fee should not exceed $2. The town also has an arts-and-crafts market where you can truly shop affordably.

With respect to tourism in Accra itself, the following places are recommended:

Labadi beach, W.E.B. Du Bois Center (home where Du Bois died), George Padmore Library, coffin shop (where interesting, unconventional coffins are made live by carpenters), Accra Arts Center (where you can shop till you drop... from clothing and arts and crafts to jewelry), Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park (where the pre-eminent pan-Africanist’s museum is located), Independence Square (venue for all major national celebrations), University of Ghana itself. It is recommended that you take a long walk up the hill, to experience the campus’s full length. Until you visit the Great Hall--Legon's auditorium--and go past it to the Vice-Chancellor's residence, you haven't seen it all). Finally, Makola Market - one cannot visit Accra without visiting the markets, where everything, basically everything, is sold.