One of my friends is earning a master's degree in Accra, Ghana for the next 9 months so I have a very rare opportunity to have a free guide and place to stay in an exotic locale I wouldn't normally travel to. So right now I'm in the initial stages of trying to figure out if this is an expense I want to make or not. Currently I know next to nothing about west Africa so I'm going to have to read up more to see if it's a place that I am truly interested in going. The plane ticket alone will be around $1500. Right now I'm finding out if my friend would be available to travel around at any point during her stay, I figure if I'm spending so much money to go I want to see some of the other surrounding countries as well. Ghana has never been on my list of places I am dying to go, but that's because I don't know much about it and I feel that this is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. What would you do? What factors would help you decide?