This 8th edition of Bradt's Ghana remains the only dedicated guidebook on the market and the most comprehensive source of travel information on the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence and the world's second-largest producer of chocolate. Covering everything from Ghana's 550km of Atlantic coastline to its remote and sparsely populated northern border with Burkina Faso, this new edition has been thoroughly updated and is an ideal companion no matter what your interests are. Written by Philip Briggs, arguably the world's most experienced guidebook writer, it covers everything from inexpensive opportunities to see wildlife to cultural and historical aspects such as the slave trading posts. Background, practical and health information are complemented by a dedicated, illustrated chapter on wildlife, 63 maps and 18 chapters split across five regional sections, from Accra and surrounds to the coast, through eastern and central Ghana, right up to the north. The popular Cape Coast and the Ashanti regions are both covered, as is the increasingly high-profile Chale Wote Street Art festival. Friendly, safe and inexpensive, Ghana is an ideal destination for first-time visitors to Africa. It is rich in little-visited national parks, forest reserves, cultural sites and scenic waterfalls and blessed with bleached white beaches and the lush rainforest of the Atlantic coastline. Bradt's Ghana is accompanied by a dedicated, updated website run by the author himself and caters for everyone from birdwatchers to bar-hoppers. Whether you want to cruise the world's largest man-made reservoir, Lake Volta, on a pokey old steamer, hike with elephants in Mole National Park, or party all night in Accra's glittering Osu district, Bradt's Ghana is an indispensable companion.

'A great travelling companion.' Director magazine. Recommended reading The Sunday Telegraph

Philip Briggs has been exploring Africa since 1986. He has visited more than two dozen African countries and written about most of them for specialist travel and wildlife magazines including Africa Birds & Birding, Africa Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Travel Africa and Wanderlust. His long relationship with Ghana started in 1997, when he researched the first edition of a Bradt guide to the country that is soon to go into its 7th edition. Philip has returned to West Africa regularly since then to update the Bradt Guide to Ghana and to explore neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Gambia. He still spends at least four months on the road every year, usually accompanied by his wife, the travel photographer Ariadne Van Zandbergen, and spends his rest of the time battering away at a keyboard in the sleepy South African coastal village of Wilderness. This edition has been updated by Nancy Chuang. From peaceful fishing villages to the country's busiest festivals, she is fully immersed in all aspects of Ghana. Her cultural education has covered jollof and waakye, highlife and reggae, expat bars and chop bars. From the back of a motorbike or the backseat of a trotro, she dives deep into conversations about solo women travellers and how 'real Americans' are supposed to look. After multiple visits around Africa, she sees Ghana as one of the friendliest, liveliest, and quirkiest countries on the continent. Nancy is physically based in Brooklyn where her commute unfortunately doesn't involve canoeing through Ghana's mangroves.