Travel to Ghana – Episode 234
categories: africa travel
The Amateur Traveler talks to Lillie Marshall of AroundTheWorldLcom about the 3 months she volunteered in Ghana in sub-Saharan West Africa on her round the world trip.
She worked for the program Youth Creating Change. Lillie talks about some of the tourist spots in Ghana like the slavery castle at Cape Coast and Mole National Park.
Then she talks about what it is like to live and volunteer in a 3rd world country where the people are wonderful and some of the cultural differences can be striking (don’t ask why she didn’t like the beaches). She extols the wonders of food like fufu and how to buy a $10 hand made dress.
She also talks briefly about the capital of Accra that Lonely Planet thinks is their second least favorite city on the planet.
right click here to download (mp3)
right click here to download (iTunes version with pictures)
Show Notes
Around the World L – Lillie Marshall’s blog
Ghana
@WorldLillie – Lillie on twitter
Couchsurfing.com
Youth Creating Change
Cape Coast Slave Castle
Hostels in Ghana
Ahh!!! A White Person!!!
How to Get a Custom-Made Dress for $15
What the Heck is Fufu?
Ghana Student Life Stories Project
News
Gun Taken From Suicidal JetBlue Pilot in Crew Lounge
Pushy fliers may show up on TSA’s radar
Community
Allan disagrees with Ralph in Travel to Montenegro – Episode 232, says “rent a car”
Sean says Travel to Kerala, India – Episode 147 missed catholic history
Kathy and John, Yemen warnings
Amateur Traveler Egypt Photo tour slots available
iTunes reviews of the Amateur Traveler needed
No Maimi Meetup in June 2010
NYC meetup June 23 2010
Travel to Ghana – Episode 776
Travel to Togo – Episode 785
by Chris Christensen
Chris Christensen is the creator of the Amateur Traveler blog and podcast. He has been a travel creator since 2005 and has won awards including being named the "Best Independent Travel Journalist" by Travel+Leisure Magazine.+Chris Christensen | @chris2x | facebook
One Response to “Travel to Ghana – Episode 234”
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Tags: audio travel podcast, ghana, podcast, round the world, volunteer travel
Jessica Peter
Says:February 22nd, 2015 at 6:23 am
Just listened to this podcast and couldn’t help adding my two cents. I was also on a volunteer excursion to Ghana – interestingly just outside Sogakope (in a very small town called Adidome) but I spent a few weeks in Accra. I had also stumbled across that Lonely Planet list with Accra as #2 of the least favourite cities, though I quite enjoyed it! It’s dusty, chaotic, and clearly a developing world capital, but it’s got this vitality, and these extreme contrasts that make it really fascinating.
I’d recommend:
– the National Museum with some fascinating Ghanaian history
– the sprawling & fabulous Makola Market (I got a dress made, and took home more fabric for myself)
– the Oxford Street strip in Osu with restaurants, spots (that’d be ‘Ghanaian’ for a bar), and other nightlife
– the Rising Phoenix Hostel – and vegetarian restaurant – which perches on a little cliff overlooking a gorgeous private beach (some garbage and undertow, but I went in!), and has a tiki-bar style atmosphere with thatched roofs and palm trees (the Rastas smoking pot on the stairs down to the beach are friendly)
Driving around the city you’ll also probably see the slums, the worst of which is locally (unofficially) called Sodom and Gomorrha, filled with shanty houses piled on top of a dump, which is constantly burning inside the pile. The smoke makes it pretty recognizable.
Outside Accra, one other site I’d recommend is Kakum National Park, a rainforest not far from Cape Coast (the slave castle mentioned in the episode). It has with a canopy walk on teetering rope bridges that is absolutely breath-taking, and was probably my favourite site of my trip.