Eastern Region Of Ghana Tourism, Travel Attractions

Dodi World: Luxurious cruise on Dodi Princess II, Music, Watersports, Kiddi Playground and unending list of fun activities

Dodi Princess Island, now Dodi World, is one of the few places in Ghana every Ghanaian family must make a trip to at least once in this lifetime, to enjoy the amazing and breathtaking experience the tourist destination has to offer.

Located in the Eastern region, the Island is situated in the middle of the second largest man-made lake, the Lake Volta, lying adjacent to the power-house of Ghana, the Akosombo Dam.

An estimated 1.3 million tourists visit the island every year by cruising on the iconic Dodi Princess II; a luxurious 150-passenger capacity cruise boat which carries tourists around the island amidst onboard entertainment, food, drinks and the “instagramable” views will not be missed by your cameras.

Dodi World provides an island adventure which includes a tour of game park and several beachfront activities. Boat riding and Jet Ski are just few of the several watersports tourists can enjoy.

At Dodi World, there is something for everyone, including children. The Kiddi Playground has been created on the island for kids to also have a good time partaking in safe sporting activities under the watchful eyes of tour guides who are well trained to keep your kids safe.

Unending list of Watersports at Dodi World

The island never runs out of music. After enjoying the live music onboard, you are met with two different sets of folk artistes on busking when you arrive on the island. They perform traditional folk musics and dances mainly from the Volta Regions.

Kwanpa Band, a VGMA award-winning band on Dodi Princess II

Adansi Travels sends tourists on cruise experience to the Dodi island every Saturday. You can reach them on 0247067375. Mention JETSANZA for a discounted rate of GHS299 (adults) and GHS235 (children).

Bread of Life: How B. Foster came to redefine Koforidua

About two decades ago, an officer of the Ghana Air Force, Foster Koffi Berbiye, was transferred to the Eastern Regional capital, Koforidua, to continue his service. This transfer served as the genesis of B. Foster Bread, Ghana’s most famous bread brand, produced in Koforidua.

Foster Berbiye developed interest in baking bread whilst in Koforidua and started baking for friends in a small oven in his house. His friends who realized how good the bread tasted urged him to expand it and go into commercial production. Foster Berbiye heeded to this advice, and began the production of his bread in commercial quantity, under the commercial name B. Foster Bakeries.

Over the course of the decades, the B. Foster Bread and brand has grown to become the biggest bread manufacturing firm in the country, producing what is arguably the finest bread in the whole of Ghana, with a market share that is envied by rival bakery companies.

B. Foster’s growth has been immense and systematic, in its early years, the bread managed to capture the entire Eastern region market and became a household name in the entire region. Over the last few years however, the success of the bread has not only been limited to Koforidua and its environs, but in a greater part of the country, specifically the Southern part.

Anyone who has ever had a taste of the bread will agree that it has a taste unique and different from all other breads and weighs heavier than any other bread type in the market; a feature which has still not been replicated by any other bakery company.

The company now boasts of about 50 chefs, has over 105 locations throughout the southern part of Ghana, especially the Eastern Region, and has expanded to produce four different types of breads; butter, wheat, brown and sugar bread as well as other pastries.

Koforidua is known for many things, but B. Foster has come to be the biggest attraction of the famous old city over the years. And as an unwritten convention, for someone living in Koforidua, it is seen as a taboo to travel somewhere and not go with a B. Foster Bread. The mere mention of Koforidua is associated with the good old timeless bread.

Put in simply, the union between B. Foster and Koforidua is one that has defied time and age, a bond that continues to grow strong and symbolic, started over two decades ago on the foundation of passion.

Why is the small town of Larteh so popular and famous?

Larteh, a small town in the Eastern region of Ghana, is one of the most popular towns in in Eastern region and Ghana as a whole. In fact you will hardly meet an average Ghanaian who hasn’t heard of Larteh in his or her lifetime.

But why is Larteh popular and famous? and for what exactly?

Well the land of Larteh is one of the ancient towns in Ghana, first settled on my the Guans who are regarded as one of the first groups of people to migrate to present day Ghana.

But Larteh is not popular because it is an ancient town founded centuries ago, the town is reputed to have one of the most revered gods in Ghana in the name of Akonedi. A mere mention of Larteh reminds every one of the god, Akonedi.

Since the documentation of Ghana’s history, Larteh has been regarded as the traditional judgement grounds of Ghana where people who feel aggrieved or cheated visit to consult Akonedi in a bid to seek for justice.

The presence of this deity has single-handedly made Larteh a famous and well-known town, feared by many for the alleged mysterious power of its deity.

Tourists adventurous enough make the sacred journey to Larteh, located in the Akuapem North District of the Eastern region of Ghana, just to catch a glimpse of this feared shrine and what makes it so revered by all and sundry.

For the curious minds and daredevils who like to challenge their fears or satisfy their curiosity, a trip to the old shrine could be the ultimate test of one’s bravery and satisfaction of curiosity.

Eastern Tourism in Focus: The Strange Looking Umbrella Rock at Yilo Krobo

The Umbrella Rock is one of the main tourist attractions in the Eastern Region. The mysterious rock is located precisely in the Yilo Krobo District, close to the Koforidua Township.

The rock is found at the same location as the Boti Falls, hence tourists who visit Boti Falls usually take advantage to get closer to the rock and experience the mysteries of nature.

What makes the rock so famous?

The Umbrella Rock isn’t like the normal rocks we see every day on mountains and in valleys. The shape of the rock is a thing of beauty, with one large surface rock sitting comfortably on a very thing and small rock, forming an umbrella-like shape.

About fifteen to twenty people can comfortably take shelter under the mysterious rock and will be protected from rainfall or sunshine.

Presumed to be centuries old, the Umbrella Rock continues to amaze tourists who find it mind-boggling to understand how a very large surface rock in the shape of an umbrella could sit on a tiny small rock for ages, without falling, or the smaller rock wearing off to give way for a fall.

According to Natives of Yilo Krobo, the rock was discovered by a hunter who had gone hunting in the bush so many decades ago. The hunter later returned to the town to take his people to the strange looking rock. And since then, the Umbrella Rock has become a major tourist attraction in the Eastern Region.

Top 10 reasons why Koforidua is the best city to live in Ghana

If you are thinking of migrating to Ghana or already in Ghana but want to relocate, then Koforidua is your best bet.

Koforidua is undoubtedly one of the most popular cities in Ghana, serving as the regional capital of the Eastern Region. Many people who have had a chance to visit, reside or work in the city, find it hard to leave and proclaim it as one of the best if not the best city or regional capital in Ghana. But what makes people adjudge Koforidua as such? Jetsanza.com has narrowed the many reasons why Koforidua is the best city to live in Ghana to just ten.

Below are Top 10 Reasons Why Koforidua Is The Best City To Live In Ghana

No Traffic Jam at any point in Time

Koforidua is one of the few cities in Ghana that hardly experiences traffic situations. Unlike places like Accra and Kumasi where you could stay in traffic for hours when riding from one place to another, Koforidua is traffic-free and you don’t have to bother about waking up at dawn to go to work in order to avoid the traffic. This has made movement in the city very easy and comfortable, a reason why people from elsewhere who have visited the city believe it is the best in Ghana.

Good Roads

Koforidua relatively has very good roads compared to the other major cities in Ghana. Almost every road in the city, major or minor is tarred with only a handful of portholes which is normal in Ghana, even though shouldn’t be the case. Anyone who has lived in places like Accra would attest to how impressive the roads in Koforidua as all the main roads have been tarred.

Affordable Accommodation

The cost of accommodation in Koforidua is ridiculously cheap if you compare it to the likes of Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi. The cost of renting in Accra costs about 6 times the price in Koforidua for same kind of apartment. Though areas closer to schools are expensive, it’s the case of all other cities since those houses are usually used as hostels for students.

The cost of accommodation has contributed significantly to people leaving other regions to resettle in Koforidua.

Moderate Transport Fare

Transportation in Koforidua is hustle free with transport fares being very moderate. Hardly will you have to pay more than GHS2 for transportation in Koforidua, irrespective of where you are going. As far as your destination is within the city, expect to pay anything not more than GHS2. This is a sharp contrast to what pertains in other cities in Ghana, where transportation fares are a headache for the ordinary Joe. Interestingly, there is no Trotro in Koforidua and taxi fares remain cheaper than Trotro in other cities.

Good Restaurants with Cheap Foods

Koforidua is one of the few places in Ghana where you will find very good restaurants where the prices of foods are very cheap. This is not so common in the country or other cities. You could easily find hotels and restaurants that meet the standard of those in Accra or Kumasi and even offer better services yet the cost of food at these restaurants are way cheaper than those in Accra. Though many have argued that foodstuff are expensive in Koforidua, foods at the top hotels and restaurants are relatively cheaper than same stars of hotels in other cities.

Cheap Hotel Prices

Another phenomenon that makes Koforidua the best city in Ghana is the low cost of hotels and guest houses. Usually hotels and guest houses in regional capitals are very expensive due to the cosmopolitan nature of the cities and high demand for these facilities. That however is not the case in Koforidua where the cost of staying in hotels and guesthouses are far less cheaper compared to other regional capitals. This makes visiting the city very cheap as one can easily lodge at a guesthouse or a hotel for days and still pay an amount that can’t book a hotel for a day in Accra. Hotel rooms that go for GHS150 ($30) in Accra, is only GHS50 ($10) in Koforidua.

Almost all government institutions have branches in Koforidua

Even though Koforidua is just an hour and half drive from Accra, you wouldn’t need to visit the national capital if you want to deal with any state institution as all the important state institutions like the Passport office, Drivers and Vehicle License Authority (DVLA) and others have offices in the city. Others may argue that these offices are found in other cities as well but what makes Koforidua different is NO QUEUES.

Beautiful Landscapes

Koforidua has one of the best and most beautiful landscapes in Ghana. These landcapes are what people have been traveling to India, Sri Lanka and other countries to see. The town is overlooked by the Akuapem Mountains while the land itself is not tilted much to one side and has a relatively leveled surface making movement less hectic. The city also boasts of a lot of green vegetation and trees, providing better climate for residents. This is something which is missing in places like Accra where one could walk for hours without coming across a tree.

No flooding

The issue of flooding in Ghana has been one of the most topical and discussed subjects in Ghana for decades, as most part of the country, especially our regional capitals flood during the rainy seasons. Koforidua has however been an exemption to the norm. The city doesn’t experience flooding no matter the heaviness of the downpour and on the few occasions there have been flooding; hardly does it affect life and property as has become the case in places like Accra, Tamale and Kumasi.

Koforidua has become one of the few cities in Ghana where you can expect life to go on normally without residents making any adjustments during the rainy season.

Good sanitation

Koforidua is one of the cleanest cities in Ghana today if not the cleanest. It is normal to go for jogging at dawn and see Zoomlion workers sweeping the streets and collecting all waste materials before the day breaks. This sadly is not the case in most cities in Ghana. A walk through the streets of Accra and you would see heaps of waste left by the roadsides, some of which are left uncollected for days and even weeks at times.

All the reasons cannot be listed. Aside it’s closeness to Accra and Kumasi, crime rate in the city is almost zero despite seeing Policemen at few places. The usual GHS2 collected by Policemen in other cities is not seen in Koforidua. The city also boasts of the best basic schools which are highly patronised by politicians who have second homes in the city.

It’s proximity to various attractions, easy accessibility to nearby towns, the well-patronised market days, the nightlife, the huge parking space at the Jackson Park that hardly gets even one third filled, and yes, you enjoy B. Foster Bread while it’s still fresh.

Koforidua undoubtedly is one of the best cities in Ghana and one could go on and on to explain why the city deserves all the praises it gets. Ones a small and hardly spoken about town, Koforidua is gradually defying the odds to become Ghana’s finest city.

Dipo Ceremony: All what you need to know about the much-criticised puberty rite

The Dipo Rites is arguably one of the most popular yet criticized traditional festival and practice in Ghana, yet one of the most attended event in the country, receiving huge patronage from tourists.

Dipo is celebrated by the people of Odumase Krobo in the Eastern region. The annual event is meant to usher girls who are in their puberty and virgins into womanhood. The practice once performed on a young girl, signifies that she is now a woman and ready for marriage.

The festival is traditionally held in the month of April. When the festival is announced, parents send their qualified girl children to the chief priest of the town. These young girls are then taken through a series of rituals to prove their chastity and qualification for the rites as it is reserved for only girls in their puberty and virgins.

After rituals and tests are conducted to prove the eligibility of a girl to take part in the rites, the process then commences. On the first day of the rituals, the girls have their heads shaved and a piece of cloth tied around their waist to their knee level, while the upper parts of their body remain naked. The girls are then paraded through the entire community.

On the following day, the girls are taken to the chief priest who pours libation, and then proceeds to a ritual bath where the feet of the girls are washed with the blood of goats in the presence of their parents. The ritual bath according to their tradition is meant to drive away evil spirits such as the spirit of barrenness. The girls then proceed on a sacred stone to test their virginity and to see if they are pregnant.

After all these processes, the young girls are housed for a week and educated about womanhood, marriage and the customs and tradition of the people. They are then released back to their parents. The festival climaxes with a huge durbar in the community where the girls get to dress in kente and some beautiful ornaments given to them by their parents. At this point any man present at the durbar and interested in any of the girls can start investigating about the girls’ background and family before making an official approach.

While the festival has had its fair share of criticism from human right groups who argue that the practice was absurd and against the girls privacy, especially as they have to be paraded through the town half naked, the event nevertheless receives huge patronage with so many tourists making their way to Krobo Odumase every April to witness the Dipo Festival.

Atewa Range Forest Reserve: The lungs of the Eastern Region

The Atewa range forest reserve is located in Ghana’s Eastern region, near the town of Kibi in the Akyem Abuakwa district, and arguably among the most important and largest natural forest reserves in Ghana, playing a significant role in the ecosystem of the country.

The forest reserve runs all the way from Kibi to the South-western part of Kwahu plateau forming the South-West border of the most prominent river body in Ghana, the Lake Volta.

The importance of the forest to the economic development of Ghana especially the people of the Eastern region cannot be oversized. The entire region currently depends on the Atewa range for water supply as the Ghana Water Company depends on the treatment of the Ayensu, Densu and Birim rivers found in the Atewa range to supply water to residents of the region. These three rivers are also the largest in the region, flowing through most part of Eastern region for remote use by various towns.

Of all the many forest reserves in Ghana, Atewa Range Forest is touted to have the highest number of trees, some of which are very rare and very important in the Agric and science research fields.

Recently the reserve has been in the news for various controversial reasons some of which have resulted in campaigns to save the forest as it keeps depleting at an alarming rate. Authorities of the Ghana forestry commission are currently in a battle with illegal wood loggers who have turned their attention to the reserve and are cutting down the trees to sell on the timber market.

Another major problem facing the reserve is the issue of mining activities taking place in the heart of the forest. While the Atewa forest is a protected area, illegal miners have found their way in, cutting down trees and clearing green vegetation for gold mining purposes and in the process also destroying the water bodies in the forest.

Atewa is also known to contain one of the world’s largest deposit of Bauxite, but previous governments since independence have taken lot of steps to protect the bauxite reserves from being mined until recently when news broke of the current’s government’s intent to mine the bauxite as part of a financial agreement signed with the government of China in exchange for some infrastructural aid.

While the forest is classified as a protected area, it is opened for tours and citizens or tourists can visit the amazingly large forest and engage in some tourist activities like Bird watching and hiking.

Kwahu Plateau: The pride of Kwahu

The Kwahu Plateau is found in the Kwahu area in the Eastern region and is perhaps the most visited plateau in Ghana as the entire Kwahu townships are situated on top of the Plateau giving it a unique outlook different from the other plateaus one would see elsewhere.

As the largest of its kind in Ghana, the Kwahu plateau is 260 square kilometres long stretching along the entire Kwahu area down to the Nkawkaw Township.

Geographically, the plateau plays an important role in the waterbodies movement of Ghana separating rivers in the Western part of Ghana from rivers in the southern part, most notably rivers found within the Volta Lake.

The highest point of the plateau is around the Mount Akmawa area where it measures at 2585 ft from ground level, making it one of the highest points in the Southern part of the country and ideal for activities like paragliding which takes place on the Kwahu ridge every year.

The plateau is well known for attracting millions of tourists every year from different parts of the world with most of these tourists visiting for hiking and paragliding festivals which usually take place in April during the Easter period. For tourism purposes, the best towns to visit on the plateau are Mpraeso, Obo and Abetifi.

What country is Koforidua

Koforidua is in the West African country of Ghana, formerly called the Gold Coast until it gained independence on March 6, 1957. The first in the subregion to have gained independence from colonial rule, it is a country known for the lovely nature of citizens and their hospitable nature.

Ghana currently has 16 regions. And the Eastern Region is one of the largest whose regional capital is Koforidua.

The city of Koforidua is the closest regional capital to the national capital city of Accra. It is approximately less than a two-hour drive and probably less depending on the state of traffic in Accra. Once in the city, what greets you is its calmness, a sharp contrast to what one sees on entering Accra. Its people are mostly Akans interspersed with some other tribes. It is, therefore, a little city with a heterogeneous population. You can get into the city from Accra through two routes, either through Aburi or Nsawam. It is suggested that you use the Aburi road because it offers a straight forward short route despite its mountainous nature.

The city is host to two Universities, one public and the other private. These are the Koforidua Technical University and the All Nations University respectively. It also has one of the best and the most sort after place for the training of nurses and midwives, the Koforidua Midwifery and Nursing Training College.

The city also has the largest beads market in West Africa and the only one of its kind in Ghana, it is a wonderful sight to behold several beads sellers in one location. The sheer size of the market and the different types of beads and craft that are made out of beads will get you stunned.

This city further hosts the famous Mountain that houses several Telecommunication masts. The Obour Tabiri Mountain. It is 781feet into the sky.

The city has a lot of places to eat from and to lodge. Some of the hotels you should be on the lookout for are the Mac Dic Royal Hotel, Eastern Premier Hotel, Capital View Hotel and the Koforidua Hotel, just to name a few. Restaurants available to you in the city include the Linda Dor, Chris Café and Havilah. There are countless fufu eating joints as well. Famous among them the Abease chop bar.

KFC Koforidua: Restaurants that sell Chicken and French Fries

KFC is a global brand that attracts new tongues trying out the taste of the worldwide secret recipe.

KFC has been in Koforidua since November 2021. In Koforidua, KFC is located near B Foster Bread, around the Shell Filling Station.

There are also some splendid places where you would find Chicken and french fries just like KFC. Some of these places are:

Linda Dor main: This is located at the Linda Dor Plaza. Give them a call on 050 163 41 73 to place an order for some yummy and sumptuous chicken to be delivered to you.

Harris Kitchen: Located on the adjacent the Opportunity Bank and opposite the central market. Harris Kitchen has gradually grown to become the love of many in the city.

Call them on 054 918 1422 for delivery.

Kini’s Kitchen: Located on the Nana Kweku Boateng street. You can call them the last born of kitchens in the city. Try them out by calling 024 422 5059.

Havilah Restuarant: Arguably the mother of all “Kitchens” in Koforidua. This is an old brand in the city which now operates from the Kenkey Factory.

The place of Gold works till 10:00 PM, you can reach them on 055 664 1133.