Accra or Dakar?

Dakar lives with the sea far more than Accra does. N'Gor, Yoff, Anse Bernard and the coves around the Almadies are all inside the city, and N'Gor island, a few minutes away by pirogue, has calm water for swimming. The catch is the season: from about December to May the upwelling keeps the water cool and the surf strong.

Accra's sea is warm all year, but heavy swells, rip currents and litter make the city shore, Labadi included, better for drumming and weekend crowds than for swimming. Its good beaches, Bojo on its sandbar and the surf village of Kokrobite, are trips out of town, not part of daily life.

Eating in Accra is about filling, pepper-hot comfort food. A meal is usually a starch, banku, fufu or kenkey, with a soup or fried fish, and jollof rice gives every cook something to argue about. You eat in chop bars and from street vendors in Osu, Jamestown and around Makola, and the snacks are just as substantial: waakye in the morning and kelewele after dark. Once you step beyond Ghanaian and Lebanese cooking, though, the choice runs out quickly.

Dakar gives you more variety from one meal to the next. Yassa is sharp with onion and lemon, mafé is rich with peanut, and on a coast where the catch comes in every day, fish turns up in many forms. Snacking is also more varied: fataya pastries, café Touba and sweet attaya tea in place of Accra's plantain and beans, as well as bissap and ginger juice, French bread and Lebanese mezze. Polished restaurants are scarce in both cities, so plan to eat home-style.

Dakar has far more to see. Gorée's UNESCO-listed lanes and the House of Slaves are a short ferry ride away, and the Museum of Black Civilisations and the IFAN museum hold collections from across Africa. The Village des Arts and the Dak'Art biennale add a contemporary side, and the main sights fill three or four days.

Accra's story is the independence era, told through the Nkrumah mausoleum, Black Star Gate and the Du Bois Centre, together with the forts and lighthouse of Jamestown. Its museums are thin, and Ghana's great slave-trade castles at Cape Coast and Elmina are far from the city, so two or three days are enough.

The two are evenly matched, but the nights feel different. Accra's evening drifts from roadside beer and grilled meat to rooftop bars in Osu and Labone and on to Afrobeats and amapiano clubs. In December the homecoming season turns the whole month into one long party.

Dakar starts later and runs longer, with bars that barely fill before midnight and clubs that go on until dawn. In this mostly Muslim city a night out is more about dressing up and dancing than about drinking, there are ocean-facing lounges in Almadies and Ngor, and things go quiet during Ramadan.

Dakar has the more dramatic natural setting, and it is on the doorstep. Basalt cliffs, the Mamelles hills, Africa's westernmost point and year-round surf breaks lie along the shore, with the Madeleine Islands bird park offshore and Lac Rose and Bandia about an hour away. Inland, though, the land is dry and has little shade.

Accra is flat and hemmed in by traffic, but its surroundings are greener. The cool Aburi ridge with its botanical gardens, the baboons and caves of the Shai Hills and boat trips on Lake Volta offer forest and hill country that Dakar lacks, though each takes a drive.

Neither city is a strong base for outings, but Dakar's are more memorable. The Petite Côte gives easy days at Toubab Dialaw, Somone and Mbour, the shell island of Joal-Fadiouth makes a long but rewarding trip, and the Great Mosque of Touba is a realistic day out by motorway.

Accra's most important trip, to the castles of Cape Coast and Elmina, really needs a night away. Within reach for a day are the woodcarvers of Aburi, the Krobo bead-making villages and Akosombo on the Volta, which are pleasant but minor. Dakar's Saint-Louis also needs an overnight stay.

Neither city is built around children. In both, families are warmly welcomed but have to plan around heat, traffic, broken pavements and malaria. In Accra the rough surf means hotel pools and air-conditioned malls do much of the work. The shade of Achimota Forest and the baboons of the Shai Hills make good outings, and older children who enjoy markets and drumming get the most out of a stay.

Dakar has more for children to do in the water. N'Gor island, a short pirogue hop offshore, has calm swimming, and the ferry to Gorée is an outing in itself. A drive inland to see giraffes and rhinos at Bandia makes a full day. Families tend to settle in Ngor or Almadies to be near the sea, or at a resort on the Petite Côte.

Dakar is easier, if only up to a point. The TER railway and the rapid bus line are clean and straightforward along the main corridors, and taxis and ride-hailing cover everything else. The peninsula is long, though, so the trip from the Plateau to Ngor still takes a while.

Accra has no rail at all, so visitors depend on ride-hailing and taxis stuck in heavy traffic. The trotro minibuses are hard for a newcomer to work out. Walking only really works in parts of Osu and Jamestown, and day trips usually mean hiring a car with a driver.

In both cities, the thing to bring home is cloth made up by a local tailor in a few days. In Accra that means wax print from Makola Market or kente and carvings from the Arts Centre, plus Krobo glass beads.

Dakar adds bazin and woven cloth at the HLM market and silver jewellery at Soumbédioune, and the covered Kermel market is calmer than anything Accra offers. Neither city has luxury shopping, and you are expected to bargain in both.

Costs follow the same pattern in both cities. Street food, local lunches and taxis cost little, while comfortable hotels, imported wine and expat-oriented restaurants are surprisingly expensive.

The differences come down to timing and choice. In Accra, prices rise further during the December season. In Dakar, good mid-range guesthouses are scarce, so travellers who want comfort have little option but to pay close to European rates.

Dakar's music scene has more to offer the visitor. Mbalax is played live late into the night, big names still come home to perform, sabar drumming breaks out at weddings and wrestling matches, and the Sorano theatre and the Grand Théâtre give the city two dependable formal stages.

Accra has highlife band nights in garden bars and arena concerts by Afrobeats stars, especially in December. The ship-shaped National Theatre has irregular programmes, so its standout cultural event is the yearly Chale Wote festival in Jamestown.

Neither city is restful. Both offer little beyond hotel spas and massage, and in both the most reliable way to relax is to leave the centre. In Dakar that is easier, since the car-free island of N'Gor is minutes offshore, although harmattan dust can make the city tiring.

Accra's escapes are further away, in the cooler air of the Aburi hills or the beach lodges at Kokrobite. Spending a night in one of them is the best way to balance a hot, loud city stay.