Things to Do at Oxford Street
Complete Guide to Oxford Street in Accra
About Oxford Street
Oxford Street cuts through Osu, one of Accra's most energetic neighborhoods, running south from Danquah Circle toward the coast. It's less sightseeing than immersion. The air carries charcoal smoke from roadside grills one moment, synthetic sweetness of fresh fabric the next. Vendors line the pavement with wooden carvings and beaded jewelry.
Hawkers weave between slow-moving traffic calling out their wares. The steady percussion of highlife leaking from open bar doors gives the whole strip a rhythm that builds as the sun drops. Much of Accra's social life seems to funnel through here. Weekend evenings bring carnival density as restaurants and bars fill.
The northern end near Danquah Circle draws the most persistent sellers offering wristbands, sunglasses, and knockoff goods. It can feel overwhelming if you've just arrived. A polite refusal and confident pace will get you through. Further south, things settle into a relaxed commercial stretch of restaurants, boutiques, and juice bars.
The crowd shifts from tourists to Accra's young professionals grabbing dinner or meeting friends. Oxford Street lacks monumental landmarks. It compensates with texture. It's a useful barometer for the city's mood, its economy, and its appetite. Sometimes. By nightfall, much of the street smells like sizzling kelewele and grilled tilapia.
What to See & Do
Street-side craft stalls
Small wooden stalls cluster along the northern stretch near Danquah Circle, displaying carved Ashanti stools, kente-patterned accessories, hand-beaten brass weights, and painted masks. Quality varies. Take your time handling pieces and checking joinery before committing. Traders here start negotiations high. The back-and-forth is part of the experience. Some of the better carvers work from the back of their stalls. Show genuine interest and they'll sometimes walk you through the symbolism of specific Adinkra motifs.
Danquah Circle
The busy roundabout where Ring Road East, Oxford Street, and the Cantonments road converge marks the unofficial way into Osu. It's loud. It's exhaust-thick. It's chaotic with trotros jostling for position. It orients you instantly. From here you can walk the full length of Oxford Street southward, with commercial density thinning as you approach the coast. The circle itself is more navigational landmark than scenic one. It gives you a useful feel for Accra's traffic rhythms and the way the city moves.
Chez Afrique
Chez Afrique is a fixture on the Osu nightlife scene. It draws crowds on Friday and Saturday nights with a live highlife band whose brass section you'll hear from the street before you spot the entrance. The atmosphere inside is warm and close. The tang of palm wine mixes with perfume and sweat on the dance floor. It's one of the better places to hear live Ghanaian music without the formality of a concert hall. Locals and visitors tend to share tables freely.
Evening food stretch
As dusk settles, the southern half of Oxford Street transforms into an open-air kitchen. Charcoal braziers glow orange beneath griddles loaded with tilapia and chofi. Kelewele vendors toss cubes of spiced plantain in deep iron pots. The peppery-sweet aroma catches you from a full block away. Waakye sellers dish mounds of rice and beans from enormous aluminum pots, topping them with shito. That's a dark, smoky chili sauce that lingers on the palate long after the meal. This is Accra eating as it prefers to eat. Standing up. Paper plate in hand. Cold drink from the nearest cooler.
Local boutiques and fabric shops
Small Ghanaian-owned boutiques selling tailored clothing, wax-print fabrics, and leather goods sit scattered between the international fast-food outlets. A few shops will take your measurements and turn around a custom outfit within a day or two. Worth knowing if you have time in Accra. The fabrics themselves are worth browsing even without buying. Bolts of ankara cloth lean against shop walls in stacks of indigo, burnt orange, and forest green. Shopkeepers are typically happy to explain which prints are traditional and which are contemporary designs.
Practical Information
Opening Hours
Oxford Street is a public road. There's no closing time as such. Shops and restaurants typically open by mid-morning and many stay open until late evening. The craft stalls near Danquah Circle tend to wind down around sunset. Bars and music venues along the strip keep going well past midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Weekday mornings are the quietest period. This suits anyone who wants to browse the shops without the crowd pressure.
Tickets & Pricing
No tickets or entry fees apply to walking Oxford Street itself. Individual venues like Chez Afrique or the Republic Bar might charge a cover on big nights. These tend to be modest. The craft stalls and food vendors operate on a cash basis. Some restaurants accept mobile money. It's worth carrying small bills for street food and taxis.
Best Time to Visit
Late afternoon through early evening gives you the best of both worlds. You catch the tail end of shopping hours when the heat has eased and a sea breeze sometimes pushes inland from the Gulf of Guinea. Then you're already in position as food vendors fire up their grills and nightlife starts to stir. Weekend evenings are the liveliest. They're also the most crowded. Prefer a calmer experience? Tuesday or Wednesday evening still has good energy without the weekend crush. Accra's weather is warm and humid year-round. The harmattan season from December to February brings drier, slightly cooler air and a haze that softens the sunsets.
Suggested Duration
Two to three hours lets you walk the full length of the street, browse the stalls, eat something from a roadside vendor, and have a drink at one of the bars. If you plan to sit down for a full meal and then catch live music at somewhere like Chez Afrique, budget a full evening.
Getting There
Most visitors reach Oxford Street from the north via Danquah Circle, which sits at the junction of Ring Road East and the Cantonments road. Trotros, Accra's shared minibuses, run along Ring Road East and stop near the circle. Listen for the conductor calling 'Osu' or '37' and confirm your stop before boarding, because it's easy to end up on the wrong route if you're not familiar with the system.
Ride-hailing apps are widely used in Accra and tend to be the least stressful option for first-time visitors. A ride from the airport to Osu is relatively inexpensive compared to what you'd pay for a similar distance in most West African capitals. Regular taxis also work. But agree on the fare before getting in, as meters are rare.
From central Accra the drive is short, roughly three kilometers east of the business district, though traffic along Ring Road can stretch that into a longer sit, during the late-afternoon rush. Walking from the Cantonments or Labone neighborhoods is straightforward and takes about fifteen to twenty minutes.
Things to Do Nearby
Originally built as a Danish trading fort in the seventeenth century, Osu Castle sits near the coast south of Oxford Street. It served as the seat of Ghanaian government until 2013 and was converted into a presidential museum in 2017 as part of Ghana's sixtieth-anniversary legacy project. The whitewashed walls and heavy stone archways carry the weight of a complex history, from the Danish slave trade through British colonial rule to independence. It's part of the UNESCO-inscribed Forts and Castles of Ghana. A sobering counterpoint to the commercial energy of Oxford Street, and worth the short walk.
Accra's most popular public beach lies east of Osu and draws weekend crowds who come for the warm, murky surf and the drumming circles that form spontaneously on the sand. The atmosphere tends toward the festive, with music, food vendors grilling fish under thatched shelters, and horse rides along the waterline. It pairs well with an Oxford Street evening if you time it right, catching the beach in the late afternoon and then heading back to Osu for dinner.
A short drive west of Osu, Black Star Square is an enormous ceremonial plaza that hosts national celebrations. The Independence Arch rises at its center, modeled loosely after the Arc de Triomphe but rendered in Ghanaian concrete with a black star perched on top. The scale feels deliberately outsized, built to hold the ambition of a newly independent nation. On quiet days you might have the plaza almost to yourself, which makes the vastness even more striking.
For a rawer, less tourist-oriented commercial experience, Makola Market in central Accra is the city's largest open-air trading hub. The density of stalls, the noise of haggling, and the sheer volume of goods, from yams stacked head-high to bolts of fabric and imported electronics, make Oxford Street look like a country lane by comparison. It's not for everyone. But it gives you a sense of how Accra's commercial engine runs.
Located in the Cantonments neighborhood within walking distance of Osu, this small museum occupies the house where the American civil rights scholar W.E.B. Du Bois spent his final years after becoming a Ghanaian citizen. The grounds are quiet and shaded, a welcome contrast to the heat and noise of Oxford Street, and the exhibits trace the intellectual links between the African American freedom movement and Ghanaian independence.
Tips & Advice
Tours & Activities at Oxford Street
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