Busua Beach

Busua is on Ghana's western coast, a crescent of golden sand between two headlands with a village behind it and Dixcove, a working fishing port, a short walk over the hill.

It is the country's surf town, such as it is: a beach break that works most of the year, a couple of schools, and a scene that has grown steadily since the 2000s without becoming anything like the coasts of Morocco or Senegal. The wave is manageable and the water is warm, which makes this one of the more forgiving places in West Africa to learn.

The coast around it carries the heaviest history of any in this register. Fort Metal Cross stands above Dixcove, built by the English in 1683; Elmina Castle and Cape Coast Castle, both an hour or so east, are UNESCO World Heritage sites and were the largest slave-trading posts on the West African coast. Several hundred thousand people were held in their dungeons before being shipped across the Atlantic. Anyone visiting this beach should visit them, and the register says so plainly rather than listing them as an attraction. The bay is shallow and the bottom sandy, which is unusual on a coast that is mostly rock and river mouth.

The beach itself has a shore break and rips and no lifeguard service; the water is warm year-round and often cloudy from river outflow. Development is a village of guesthouses and small hotels, informal and inexpensive. Axim's Fort São António, an hour west, is one of the oldest European buildings in sub-Saharan Africa, and Cape Three Points nearby is the closest land to the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian.

A forgiving beach break, warm water and a couple of schools, which makes this the easiest place in West Africa to learn. It also sits between Elmina and Cape Coast, the largest slave-trading castles on this coast, through whose dungeons hundreds of thousands of people passed. Give them a day, not an hour on the way to the surf.