Retro Travel Photo – Before We Grew Up: Fishing boats at Senya Beraku, Ghana, West Africa

In this new occasional section we share some of the travel photos from our archives – when we paid our dues but rarely our way. Times were tough, hitch-hiking was a favoured mode of transport (even through the Sahara, which was surprisingly easy) and luxury hotels were places we tried to sneak into to have a swim.

We’re talking bad hair days galore, I’m sure…

Guilty there I’m afraid. Haircuts were far down the list of priorities when it came to actually spending money, as you will see. Still – all good fun and useful experience – it certainly makes us appreciate Grown-up Travel even more…

A country I had the honour of calling home for several years in the early 1990s, Ghana was a fascinating place to be in those days. Political stability coupled with rising living standards created a dynamic country with something new to see each day. When I needed a break from Accra, the lively capital, solace could be found along the coast and several of the old slave forts had rooms to stay (which practically nobody knew about). Life in Senya Beraku was quiet, except for when the fishing boats landed their catch, as captured below.

You can see the fort on the hill, and if I recall correctly a large double room overlooking the ocean was about 50 US cents. The only hassle was finding the guy with the key as he was not used to people asking for it…

All pictures from this era were taken with my very first (non-digital) SLR, a Canon EOS something which I eventually sold to a fellow traveller in Africa. The quality is poor due to the age of the original print when scanned.

 

Andy Higgs
Andy Higgs

I know what it's like to go from being a crazy backpacker without a care in the world, via being a vaguely sensible parent to being an adventurer once more. In other words, evolving into a Grown-up Traveller.

Like everyone else, I love to travel, have visited a lot of countries and all that but my big thing is Africa.

I also own and run The Grown-up Travel Company as a travel designer creating personalised African itineraries for experienced adventurers

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