Papa New Guinea

 

Papua New Guinea feels like one of the last untouched places in the world. Guaranteed you’ll be hard pushed to find someone who’s been, let alone can tell you about travelling there, which makes it all the more attractive.

I wanted to put together this Papua New Guinea travel guide to help anyone who’s thinking of travelling to this wonderful country in the future

I went one September for two weeks and had a truly eye opening and interesting time. I had no preconceptions and knew very little about the country before I went. 

It’s slightly larger than California, if you’re looking for some kind of reference for its size.

Papua New Guinea might seem like a million miles away but if you’re in Australia, and up in Darwin, in the Northern Territory, then it’s an 11-hour direct flight to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea’s capital city. Or, even better, it’s just six hours from Singapore. Which is the flight I took, from England and stopping over there. 

There are over six million people living in Papua New Guinea, speaking over 800 indigenous languages between them, with hundreds of different beliefs and ways of life. This means there’s no one way of doing things in Papua New Guinea – delve deeper and you’ll see that even just one village varies greatly from the next, never mind province

The country is made up of 4 regions, with 20 provinces, that aren’t particularly well connected. Travel to Papua New Guinea and you’ll be travelling around by air most of the time, but where to go? 

Don’t stay in Port Moresby is the short answer for this Papua New Guinea travel guide. To really get out and experience Papua New Guinea you need to either aim high, and get yourself up in the mountains, or go low, and head to the coast to find some of the best scuba diving in the world.

And that’s a confirmed fact about Papua New Guinea, the scuba diving is incredible

My top recommendations for where to go in Papua New Guinea would be:

 Tari or Mount Hagen, for the cultural villages.

 Hoskins, for the scuba diving

 Tufi, for diving, beaches, fishing and culture

Sepik River, for tropical wilderness living

Kokoda Trail, for hiking

Make sure you have all your visas sorted for travel to Papua New Guinea if you’re stopping off anywhere, and for entry into the country. Visa restrictions change all the time so you can check Byevisa for updates, and your local government travel site too. 

Research ‘Papua New Guinea’ online and you’re bound to see pictures of the village tribes adorned with colourful costumes, and happy Papua New Guineans bouncing to the sound of the drums. I saw these people, I even recognise some of them from the pics, and I know where to find them.