Ashanti

The Asantehene reigns from Manhyia Palace, and the distinction that matters for a visitor is that this is a functioning court rather than a preserved one. The palace museum, in the older building, walks through the institution's history, its regalia and the succession, and is the right first stop for understanding what you are looking at elsewhere in the region. The larger opportunity is Akwasidae. Held every forty-two days on the Ashanti calendar rather than on a fixed date, it is the occasion when the Asantehene receives chiefs and the public in state — gold ornament, umbrellas, linguists carrying their staffs, and drumming that carries across the palace forecourt. It is a public event and visitors are welcome; the practical requirements are to check the next date well ahead, since the cycle rarely aligns conveniently with a trip, to dress respectfully, and to follow instruction about where to stand and when photography is acceptable. You will hear about the Golden Stool, the object at the centre of Ashanti identity, and you will not see it — it is not displayed, and that is the whole of what can respectfully be said about it.

Kejetia is one of the largest markets in West Africa and it operates at a scale that visitors consistently underestimate — a multi-level structure plus the sprawl around it, organised into trades rather than laid out for browsing, and easy to lose an afternoon in without meaning to. It is not dangerous and it is not a tourist attraction; it is where a very large number of people do business, and the experience improves enormously with a guide who knows which section is which. Half a day is the right allocation. Go in the morning, accept that you will be conspicuous, and expect the interaction to be good-humoured. For actual buying, the market is better for fabric, beads and everyday goods than for craft — the craft is better bought where it is made, an hour outside the city, and usually costs less there too.

Each of the villages around Kumasi does one thing, and seeing all three in a day is the region's best single outing. Bonwire weaves kente: narrow strips produced on hand looms, each pattern named and meaning something specific, sewn edge to edge into cloth. Watching it is the point — the loom is a whole-body operation and a serious piece takes weeks — and buying directly from the weaver is both cheaper and the version where the money reaches the maker. Single-weave pieces price honestly below the double-weave work, and the difference is visible once someone shows you. Ntonso does adinkra: symbols carved into calabash stamps and printed in a black bark dye onto cloth, each symbol carrying a proverb, and visitors can stamp their own. Ahwiaa carves stools and figures, the stool being the Ashanti object that matters most — a seat, a symbol of office, and in some cases a shrine. None of the three is a demonstration village staged for visitors; they are working places that have become used to being watched.

An hour south of Kumasi, Lake Bosumtwi fills a near-perfect circular basin roughly eight kilometres across — a meteorite impact crater, and Ghana's only natural lake. It is quiet in a way the region otherwise is not: villages around a wooded rim, fishermen working from small planked boats, and swimming that is safe and unusually pleasant. A day trip works; a night makes more sense. The lake holds real significance for the Ashanti and traditional practices attach to it, which is worth knowing simply so that you take local guidance about the water seriously rather than treating it as arbitrary. Back towards the city, the Ashanti Traditional Buildings — a scattered set of shrines under UNESCO listing — preserve the region's pre-colonial architecture: steep thatched roofs over walls of moulded relief in bold repeating patterns, the last substantial survivals of a building tradition that was once general here. They are small, quiet, several of them some way apart, and they need a car and a half day. Anyone who has enjoyed the adinkra symbols will find the same visual language in the walls. Where Kumasi sits in a wider Ghanaian route, and how many days the southern loop actually wants, is worked out on the trip-planning guide.