Guide to Public Transport in Ghana
Getting Around Ghana on Public Transport
When traveling across Ghana, using public transport is almost unavoidable therefore hopefully this guide to public transport in Ghana will help you to get familiar with public transport options.
Surprisingly, public transport in this West African country can be either comfortable, relatively quick and on time either uncomfortable, slow and in “African-time style”. The latter is, obviously, cheaper but not that much. I would recommend you to try both “types” of public transport in Ghana, since both experiences are interesting in their own way.
The most common way to get around Ghana are buses, trotros (minivans) and taxis.
Travelling by Bus in Ghana
Buses are usually used for longer distances and between most major cities. There are plenty of bus companies that offer the same routes. Roughly, I would divide the into two groups.
In one group, there are bus companies with better quality buses. These kind of companies have ticket offices where tickets can be bought in advance or just before the departure. In my experience, it is better to buy tickets in advance, especially if traveling before or during peak season, holidays etc, when ticket can be sold out faster. If you are not able to buy ticket at one bus company, you can always try with another one.
These kind of buses have comfortable seats (especially V.I.P. bus company), air condition, they more likely depart on actual time, are relatively fast and don’t stop on the way to pick up more people. Each of bus companies usually has only one station in one city and different bus companies are usually not situated together at the same station.
Good Bus Companies in Ghana
- STC (State Transport Company),
- V.I.P.,
- GH Express.
Bus ticket prices in Ghana don’t really differ, but V.I.P. is just a little bit more expensive. Each of them usually leave couple of times in a day.
When traveling with bus in Ghana, note that you will always have to pay extra for your bigger pieces of luggage. At the STC company, STC staff will weight you luggage and you will pay per kilogram. It is not too expensive, but you are in Ghana, so you can always negotiate with staff. V.I.P. and GH Express don’t weight but just have “fixed” prices for the luggage, depends on the size.
In the other group of bus transport in Ghana, there are other (smaller) companies. Their buses are at lower quality and don’t use timetables. Tickets cannot be bought in advance since these bus companies don’t have their own offices. Buses also pick up more people on the way and can be very slow, but tickets are cheaper.
Trotros
Trotros are simply old minivans.
Public Transport Prices in Ghana
- Accra – Kumasi: 40 GHS, 4 hours (V.I.P. bus company)
- Kumasi – Tamale: 40 GHS, 6-7 hours (STC bus company)
- Standard trotro fare around Accra: 1 – 3 GHS
- Standard taxi fare around Tamale: from 1 – 2 GHS
- Short distance (approx 3 km) by taxi in Accra or Kumasi: 5 GHS
- Tamale – Bolgatanga: 12 GHS (trotro)
- Bolgatanga – Paga border: 12 GHS (shared car)
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