Cheap flights to
Ghana

If you’re wondering if there’s a perfect time to book flights ahead of a trip to save money, the answer is there is no one specific time when prices magically drop. However, there is a window when flights tend to be cheaper. It’s not too far ahead of your trip but not too close either. We call it the Goldilocks Window, and it’s about 2–8 months before an international trip or 1–3 months before a domestic trip.

That said, if you plan to fly during a peak travel season or you don’t have flexible dates, you want to start looking on the earlier side. For a January trip to Ghana, start planning in July, for example. Whatever you do, don’t wait until the last minute, hoping that flights will drop. That rarely happens. In fact, we’ve seen that prices tend to rise at the 21-, 14-, and 7-day points before departure dates, so book before those points if at all possible.

Sometimes, no matter how diligently you’re watching fares, they just don’t drop. Before you give up and choose a different destination, try our Greek Islands Trick.

If you really want to fly from Chicago to Accra, for example, but flights are out of your price range, try flying to Amsterdam instead. From there, you can often find cheaper direct flights. The goal is to get across the ocean and close to your final destination for the cheapest price possible, then find a budget airline flight or other mode of transit for your last leg. You could also look even closer to Accra, like for flights to Senegal. Although, beware that depending on where you transit through you might need an additional visa. Yes, it involves a little more work on your part to plan this kind of trip, but it potentially saves a bundle of money.

Like the Greek Islands Trick, sometimes it pays to be flexible with your airports. If you live in Chicago, you’re likely not used to looking for flights from other cities. Why would you, when O’Hare and Midway are right there with tons of flight options?

Well, we see amazing deals from airports all over the country every day, sometimes so good they’re worth an extra domestic flight. If you see a deal from New York or DC to Accra (both cities offer nonstop flights) for, say, under $700, it might be worth adding a flight from Chicago to one of those cities, often found for around $200. Again, this requires a bit more planning, but it can save you a few hundred bucks, which adds up quickly if you’re paying for more than one ticket.

One of the easiest ways to save money on flights is to travel during a destination’s off season. Think summer in Ghana, for example. This is the rainy season in Ghana, but you can find amazing deals.

For the best of both worlds––better weather and lower prices––we like to travel during shoulder seasons. Those are the periods just before and after a destination’s high season. This would be October–November or late March–April in Ghana. Prices will be lower than during the peak of high season; plus, you’ll get to see the national parks and monuments with fewer crowds.

Even if you are traveling during high season, you can save money by flying on less popular days. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays are generally the cheapest days to fly, while Fridays and Sundays are the most expensive.

You don’t have to tell us twice that searching for airfare as it changes is time consuming. The good news is that there are easy ways to make technology do some of the work for you.

Set up fare alerts for your itinerary, and you’ll get an email when the fare drops into your target range or by a noteworthy amount. It’s best to do this before the Goldilocks Window we talked about above, so you can see deals that come up during that time. If your dates or airports are flexible, set multiple alerts. You could also join Going to let us do the work for you.

Ghana is connected to the US via nonstop flights from New York and Washington, DC. Other visitors from the US will stop in one of those cities or in Europe—likely Amsterdam.