Beaches in Ghana

Five hundred kilometres of Gulf of Guinea coast, warm, humid and lined with the forts and castles of the Atlantic slave trade — some thirty of them, several UNESCO-listed, standing directly above the sand. Beach travel is concentrated on the western coast around Busua and Axim, where the swell is smaller and the water clearer. The surf here is real and the rip currents are serious; lifeguard cover is essentially absent outside a handful of resorts. The dry season runs November to March and again in August, and the sea is warm all year. Ghanaian beaches are used heavily by Ghanaians at weekends, which is the best time to see them and the worst time to want quiet. Practically: the coast is warm year-round, the water often cloudy from river outflow, and lifeguard cover exists at a handful of resorts and nowhere else. Ghanaian beaches fill on Sundays and public holidays, which is when they are most worth seeing and least quiet. The castles at Elmina and Cape Coast are a necessary part of any visit to this coast and should be given a full day rather than an hour.