Ghana

Most non-African visitors do: the standard route is the e-visa through the official Ghana Immigration Service portal (30, 60 or 90 days; processing around 3-5 working days), with visa on arrival available at Accra's Kotoka airport for eligible nationalities. ECOWAS citizens enter free for 90 days. Two hard requirements for everyone: a passport valid six months, and a yellow fever certificate if arriving from an endemic country — checked at the airport.

Ghana made itself the centre of the African-diaspora homecoming movement: the 2019 Year of Return (marking 400 years since 1619) and the ongoing Beyond the Return programme built a full infrastructure of heritage travel — the Cape Coast and Elmina tours, ancestral ceremonies at Assin Manso's Slave River, PANAFEST and Emancipation Day each summer, and naming ceremonies communities offer returnees. It is the most developed and most genuine heritage-return experience on the continent.

It's the classic answer for a reason: English-speaking, politically stable for decades, genuinely warm toward visitors (akwaaba — welcome — is a culture, not a slogan), with real infrastructure on the main circuits and low hassle by any regional standard. Normal precautions cover the cities and markets. The combination of heritage weight, wildlife, beaches and urban energy in one manageable country is exactly what a first African itinerary wants.

Base a night or two in the Cape Coast/Elmina area rather than day-tripping from Accra — the guided tours (allow 1.5-2 hours per castle) carry emotional weight that deserves unhurried time, and the guides are among Ghana's best. Photography rules vary inside the dungeons; follow the guide's lead. Pair the castles with Kakum's canopy walkway at opening time the next morning, and add Assin Manso if the ancestral dimension matters to your visit.

On foot — Mole's signature is the walking safari: an armed ranger leads small groups across open savanna to approach elephants and antelope directly, mornings and late afternoons, at prices far below East African norms. Lodges above the waterholes let you watch elephants bathe from breakfast. Reach it by flight to Tamale plus two hours' drive, and add Larabanga's ancient mud-and-stick mosque five minutes from the gate.

November to March is the dry, reliable window — and prime elephant viewing at Mole. Factor the harmattan (December-February): Saharan dust can haze the skies, softening photography but cooling the nights. April-June and September-October bring rains that green the country without shutting it down; July-August pairs the coast's driest microseason with PANAFEST and Chale Wote — the culture calendar's peak.

Carry cash as the default: cards work at hotels and upscale Accra restaurants, but markets, taxis, craft villages and everything up-country run on cedis — and increasingly on mobile money, which visiting SIM buyers can also use. ATMs are plentiful in cities and thin elsewhere, so withdraw before heading north or along the coast. Small notes make market life easier.