Things to do in Upper East Region

The Upper East Region rewards travellers who like their history close to the ground. Its places cluster around a handful of towns, and most share a thread of living culture: mud-brick architecture, sacred shrines, working palaces and markets that still run on their own rhythms. In Bolgatanga you can spend a morning at the Upper East Regional Museum, then walk to the Bolgatanga Craft Village next door, or visit the Baba Tree Basket Company to see Bolga baskets woven from elephant grass. The Bolgatanga Market, held every three days, is the big central trading ground for baskets, leather goods and smocks.

Navrongo holds a remarkable group of monuments: the mud-brick Navrongo Minor Basilica, the small museum attached to the Old Navrongo Catholic Cathedral, the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto built in 1933–34, the Navrongo Palace of the Navro-Pio and the three-day Navrongo Central Market. Near Paga, the Pikworo Slave Camp marks a transit site used from 1704 to 1845, while the Paga Border Market trades daily on the frontier and the Paga Pia Palace remains a decorated Kassena family compound.

The Tongo and Sirigu areas differ in character. Tongo offers the granite Tongo Hills, the Tengzug Shrine, the Tenzug Cave School, the Tongo Chief's Palace and the wider Tongo-Tengzuk Cultural Landscape. At Sirigu, SWOPA and the Martyrs of Uganda Parish Church show craft and mural traditions kept by local women.