My experience getting a Ghana visa – How to apply

For my upcoming trip to Africa I'm facing the challenge of getting a number of 'difficult visa' incl. Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Gabon.

Ghana was the first visa that I tackled and given the standard of African visa it was a pleasant process.

Ghana maintains a consulate in Houston that has a very friendly staff that actually pick up the phone during business hours at 713-960-1950. My questions were quick and so were the answers.

I found the instruction clear and easy to understand.

For my Ghana visa I filled out the one-page application form and attached a print out with my flight reservations in and out of Ghana.

I attached a passport picture and a copy of my US passport.

The Visa would go into one of my German passports which I included into the package.

I bought two money orders at the post office (some consulates only deal with post office money orders).

I went to my local Fedex shop to print out all teh paperwork and get two Fedex Express saver envelopes for the outbound and inbound delivery.

After just two days or processing (the Fedex arrived Friday morning in Houston) my visa was ready and my passport sent out Monday afternoon.

In total it took less than one hour to prepare all the data (incl. my call to the consulate) and cost me $60 on consular fee, $40 for the expedite fee (the Houston consulate only processes express applications), and $20 for each Fedex envelope.

That's ~$140 in total for single-entry Tourism visa for an African country with minimal hassle (besides the paperwork) - that's pretty good in my book. The fees are identical for US passports.