Travel in Papua New Guinea: a country crossed by air and on foot

Why visitors fly between provincial towns

The terrain decides the transport. Britannica records that Papua New Guinea has no railways and few paved roads, that Port Moresby is connected by road to only two other provinces, and that internal travel is expensive whether to the islands or across the unstable mainland. Wikipedia's article on tourism in the country puts it more starkly: the capital is not linked by road to any of the other major towns, and many Highlands villages can be reached only by light aircraft or on foot.

Flying is therefore the ordinary way to move. The tourism authority lists Air Niugini, PNG Air, MAF and TropicAir among the domestic airlines and notes that they serve all the provincial capitals and many smaller towns and villages; its own count is 21 paved runways and 562 airports. Overseas flights arrive at the international airport in Port Moresby. Britannica adds that the number of small airstrips serving remote stations fell quickly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as roads spread and government charters were cut.

Roads matter in a few corridors. The Highlands Highway links Lae and Madang on the coast with Goroka and the Highlands towns, and Britannica notes that landslides and poor maintenance sometimes block it for days. On New Ireland the Boluminski Highway runs flat from Kavieng to Namatanai, and a highway links Wewak with Vanimo near the Indonesian border. Public motor vehicles, privately owned minibuses, buses and open trucks known as PMVs, are the cheap way to travel by road; the tourism authority advises women not to ride them alone.

Water is the other road. Liveaboard dive boats and fishing charters work the coasts, ferries make overnight runs between coastal towns, and small open dinghies known as banana boats carry passengers between islands. The tourism authority advises bringing life jackets and staying off overloaded boats in bad weather. It also names piracy as a known risk at sea and suggests asking hosts about it.

How the four regions divide a trip

The country is grouped into four regions, which are not administrative units but which shape the way it is described and travelled. The tourism authority lists seven provinces in the Highlands Region, Eastern Highlands, Enga, Simbu, Southern Highlands, Western Highlands, Hela and Jiwaka; five in the Islands Region, Bougainville, East New Britain, Manus, New Ireland and West New Britain; and the Papua Region of Central, Gulf, Milne Bay, Oro and Western provinces with the capital district. Momase, the northern mainland, whose provinces include Morobe, Madang and East Sepik, makes up the fourth.

Each tends to be visited for one thing. The Highlands are where the shows, the trekking and the birding are; the Islands are for diving, surfing, volcanoes and wartime history; Momase holds the Sepik and the port city of Lae; and Papua has the capital, the Kokoda Track and the bays of Milne Bay. On Bougainville the tourism authority lists visits to the Panguna mine pit, the site of the war of 1988 to 1998, and a chocolate festival at Buin built around the island's cocoa.

In Port Moresby itself the National Museum and Art Gallery at Waigani holds a large collection of ethnographic objects, and Varirata National Park lies within reach of the city. Organised tourism to the island is old: Wikipedia's tourism article records that the Australian firm Burns Philp advertised a five-week "New Guinea Excursion Trip" from Thursday Island in 1884.

Which months suit a visit

The tourism authority describes June to September as cool and dry and the most comfortable time to come, except around Lae, which is wet in those months, and December to March as the season of the heaviest rain. It gives the broader division as a wet season from November to April and a dry season from May to October, with cooler weather in the Highlands and heat and humidity on the coast. Britannica's climate account matches it: Port Moresby gets most of its rain between December and March, and the Highlands have a dry phase in the middle of the year.

Surf runs to a different calendar. Wikipedia's tourism article gives June to September for the southern side of the country, Milne Bay and Hula Beach outside Port Moresby among them, and mid-October to late April for the north coast, where it names Vanimo as the place with the most consistent waves. The tourism authority describes surfing at Kavieng in New Ireland and at Vanimo in West Sepik as possible all year.

How the Kokoda Track is walked today

The Kokoda Track crosses the Owen Stanley Range between Owers' Corner, on the southern side, and Kokoda on its plateau in the Yodda Valley. Its length depends on who measures it: the Kokoda Track Authority gives 96 kilometres and the tourism authority 138, with eight to ten days of walking. Much of it still follows wartime paths. The Australian War Memorial notes that "Trail" and "Track" are both correct names, the first a battle honour of the Australian Army and the second the word used by veterans and in the official history.

The track is managed as a joint concern of the land it crosses. The Kokoda Track Authority, a special purpose authority of the Papua New Guinea government, sells the permits every trekker must buy and licenses the tour operators. It also pays 18 village development committees along the route to maintain the path, under agreements it has negotiated with each. Landowners' disputes with trekking companies go, where possible, through the local-level governments. Wikipedia's tourism article names the Black Cat and Bulldog tracks as rougher alternatives.

The Kokoda Track is one of several places where the Pacific War can still be traced on the ground. Rabaul was taken by Japanese forces on 22 and 23 January 1942 and made into a major base; at Milne Bay, at the eastern tip of the mainland, Australian troops defeated a Japanese landing in August and September 1942; and on the north coast Australian and American forces took the beachheads at Buna, Gona and Sanananda at heavy cost. The Kokoda Track Authority writes that thousands of visitors walk the track each year, following the route of the soldiers, and the tourism authority describes it as a pilgrimage for many of them.

What the Highlands offer above the valleys

Mount Wilhelm is the climb the tourism authority describes as the most popular in the country. A road reaches Kegsugl village from Kundiawa, and national park huts give climbers a place to stay, but the authority stresses that the ascent is hard and should be made with a guide. Night frosts are normal at that height, and Wikipedia's geography article records snow on the summit. Mount Giluwe is another of the high peaks local operators lead walkers to.

Birds are the other reason to go up. The tourism authority counts 38 kinds of bird-of-paradise in the country, alongside the hooded pitohui, a poisonous bird, and Britannica describes the Highlands' moss forest of conifers and tree ferns, hung with orchids, above about 2,000 metres. Lake Kutubu National Park in the Southern Highlands is a refuge for reptiles and butterflies as well as birds. McAdam National Park in Morobe, small as it is, holds birds-of-paradise and cuscus among other animals. Varirata National Park, close to Port Moresby, has walking and bird-watching trails within reach of the capital.

Where the islands draw divers and surfers

The coasts and islands carry most of the diving. Britannica describes coral reefs, highly diverse marine life and many sunken ships and aircraft from the Second World War around the island region. Wikipedia's tourism article lists Kimbe Bay in West New Britain, Kavieng, Madang, Alotau, Tufi and Rabaul among the main dive areas, many of them reachable on day trips, with liveaboards for the sites further out.

Rabaul combines several of these. The town on New Britain sits inside a volcanic caldera, and the tourism authority describes climbs of Mount Tavurvur, the cone that erupted in 1994 and again on 29 August 2014, along with wartime tunnels and relics around Kokopo and Rabaul. The Lark Force Wilderness Track, also on New Britain, follows the route by which Australian soldiers escaped the Japanese invasion, with nights in villages such as Lamingi and Adler Bay.

The Sepik is reached by boat. Expedition cruises call at Madang and travel on the Sepik River, and the Sepik River Crocodile and Arts Festival in East Sepik is held each August. Britannica notes that many sacred carvings from the river's great men's houses have been sold, and that the decline of tourist traffic in the 21st century left them unreplaced.

When the cultural shows take place

The shows fix many visitors' dates. The tourism authority's calendar runs from the National Mask Festival and Warwagira in East New Britain in July, through the Sepik River Crocodile and Arts Festival, the Mount Hagen Show and the Enga Cultural Show in August, to the Goroka Show, the Hiri Moale Festival in Port Moresby and festivals in Madang, East New Britain and New Ireland in September. The Morobe Show at Lae follows in October and the National Kenu and Kundu Festival at Alotau, with canoe racing and drumming, in November. Wikipedia's tourism article adds a coffee festival at Goroka in May.

Markets are the everyday version. Wikipedia's tourism article describes larger markets for visitors held about once a month in the bigger towns, with carvings, beadwork, paintings and woven baskets, and the tourism authority suggests Port Moresby's weekend markets for contemporary art and artefacts. Bargaining is not the custom in shops or farmers' markets; in craft markets it is acceptable to ask for a "second price".

What visitors should know about money and language

The currency is the kina, divided into 100 toea, and the tourism authority advises checking in advance whether a hotel accepts cards; banks and exchange booths at Port Moresby's international airport change money. Tipping is not customary and hotels and restaurants add no service charge. Mobile coverage reaches most of the country, though thinly in remote areas, and the authority recommends buying a local SIM card on arrival. The country uses the same flat-pinned plugs as Australia, at 220 to 240 volts.

Tok Pisin is understood everywhere, Hiri Motu in the southern regions and English increasingly in the larger towns. The tourism authority's advice for travelling is to go with a local guide who speaks the tok ples, the local language, and knows where it is safe to go, to stay away from secluded areas and not to walk alone at night. Britannica records that concerns about personal security, together with the high cost of flights and rooms, have held tourism back. Adventure and nature tourism have grown most in the island region. Wikipedia's tourism article counts about 184,000 international arrivals in 2015. More on the land being crossed is in the geography article, and on the shows themselves in the culture article.