The history of Cape Coast, Ghana, like that of many cities on West Africa's Atlantic shore, is a sad story of the slave trade's brutality. The fort where slaves were held for shipping to North America has been turned into a museum, and now travelers like you can stand in the dank underground cells and struggle to understand what it would be like to be locked inside, no windows or fresh air, neighbors' bodily waste flowing by in a trough along the floor.

Inexplicably, the once-feared guard post now holds an AT&T USA Direct Telephone, lift the receiver and you're talking "live" to the New World.