---
title: "Papua New Guinea travel guide: Kokoda, the Sepik and the Highlands shows | Wimup"
description: "Papua New Guinea on Wimup: why there is no road between the two biggest cities, how the flights and the visa really work, when the sing-sings run, and what to eat when you land."
url: https://wimup.com/country/papua-new-guinea
type: Country guide
updated: 2026-10-05
publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com)
---

# Papua New Guinea, the country the flight schedule plans for you

More living languages than any other country on earth, a wartime footpath over the **Owen Stanley Range**, and reefs almost nobody has dived. Papua New Guinea has **no road between its two biggest cities**, and that single fact writes every itinerary here.

## Quick answer

Fly into **Port Moresby**, sleep a night, and treat it as a hub. Then pick two of the four countries inside this one. The **Highlands**, for **Mount Hagen** in August or **Goroka** in September, with **Tari** for the Huli. The **Sepik**, by canoe out of **Wewak**. The **islands**, for diving at **Kimbe Bay** or **Milne Bay**. Or the **Kokoda Track**, eight to ten days on its own. Two weeks covers two. Book the domestic flights first, and come between **June and October**.

## Quick facts

- **Best months:** Jun · Aug · Sep
- **Ideal length:** 10–14 days
- **Budget per day:** $200–400
- **Language:** Tok Pisin & English
- **Getting around:** Domestic flights & arranged transfers

- **10,185,363** People
- **840** Languages
- **462,840 km²** Total area

Papua New Guinea is planned around aircraft, not roads. There is no highway between Port Moresby and Lae, the two largest cities, and none between the capital and the Highlands: the national road network is a set of regional systems that do not join up, so a trip is a sequence of domestic flights with ground time at each end. Accept that early and the country opens; fight it and the itinerary collapses. Port Moresby is the arrival point, on the Gulf of Papua in the south, and it is a working capital rather than a sight in itself. Give it the Port Moresby Nature Park for the birds of paradise you may not otherwise see, the National Museum and Art Gallery for Sepik carving and Highlands adornment, and the Bomana war cemetery. It is also the trailhead end of the Kokoda Track, the 96-kilometre single-file path over the Owen Stanley Range where Australian and Japanese forces fought through 1942. Walking it takes most people eight to ten days with a licensed operator and a local crew, and it is a genuine mountain trek rather than a memorial walk. North across the range, the Highlands hold most of the population and the culture that put the country on posters. Mount Hagen and Goroka are the two hubs, each with an August or September show where dozens of groups arrive in full dress to dance in one field, and Tari, further west in Hela Province, is the Huli heartland, where the wigmen grow and shape human-hair wigs and the birding around Ambua is the best organised in the country. Mount Wilhelm, at 4,509 metres the highest point in the country, is climbed from Kegsugl in Simbu over two days. The Sepik is the other great river journey. Wewak on the north coast is the gateway, and the river runs 1,126 kilometres through villages built around haus tambaran spirit houses, where carving is a living trade and not a souvenir industry; passage is by motor canoe or a small expedition boat, and it is slow by design. Madang, further down the coast, is the easiest tropical base in the country and has wrecks and reef within minutes of town. East, the islands are where the diving is. Kimbe Bay on New Britain is credited with about 60 per cent of the coral species of the Indo-Pacific inside one bay, Milne Bay out of Alotau is the muck-diving and black-water benchmark, and Kavieng in New Ireland runs channel drift dives past wartime wrecks. Rabaul, on the northeast tip of New Britain, sits inside a caldera under Tavurvur, which buried much of the town in ash in 1994 and still steams; the airport moved to Kokopo and the ruins are visitable. Tufi, on Cape Nelson, is the outlier: drowned volcanic valleys that read as fjords, with village guesthouses above them. Two practical things shape everything else. Most visitors need a visa, applied for online before flying, and travel here is organised through operators, lodges and guesthouses rather than improvised, both because the logistics demand it and because land in Papua New Guinea is overwhelmingly held under customary title, so arriving somewhere means arriving as someone's guest. Crime in Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen is serious enough that every foreign ministry names those three cities specifically, and the standard answer is arranged transfers, no walking after dark, and a local host who knows the ground.

## Know before you go

- **Population:** 10,185,363
- **Area:** 462,840 km²
- **Density:** 22 / km²
- **Capital:** Port Moresby
- **Major cities:** Port Moresby, Lae, Mount Hagen, Madang, Goroka, Kokopo, Wewak, Kimbe
- **Tourism board:** Official site
- **Currency:** Papua New Guinean kina (PGK) Cash rules outside the main hotels. Cards work in Port Moresby and larger lodges, town ATMs are unreliable, and markets, guides and porters want small notes. Kina is hard to get abroad.
- **Language:** Tok Pisin, English & Hiri Motu Tok Pisin works everywhere. It is an English-based creole, so you will follow more than you expect, and a hundred words of it change a market morning. English runs government and schools.
- **Visa:** Apply online before you fly Most nationalities apply at evisa.gov.pg, the only official portal, and should allow more than a week. Package travellers usually need a letter from a registered tour operator.
- **Getting around:** Domestic flights, then arranged ground transport Air Niugini and PNG Air link the regions through Port Moresby, since no road joins the capital to Lae or the Highlands. On the ground it is hired vehicles and boats. Keep a buffer day.
- **Safety:** City-specific, and taken seriously by residents too Every advisory names Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen for opportunistic, sometimes violent crime. Use arranged transfers, do not walk after dark, show nothing, and read your advisory.
- **Land and permission:** Roughly 97 per cent is customary land Almost all land belongs to traditional owners, so access to a beach, cave, reef or trail is arranged with them. Your guide usually negotiates, and any payment goes through that deal.
- **Health:** Malaria risk nationwide below 1,800 m Get antimalarial advice from a travel clinic well before you go, and avoid bites, above all at dusk on coasts and rivers. Dengue is present. Care is thin outside Port Moresby: get evacuation cover.
- **Power:** 240V, 50Hz, type I plug The same flat three-pin plug as Australia and New Zealand. Supply outside the towns is often a lodge generator running set hours, so charge when you can and carry a power bank.
- **Calling code:** +675 Digicel and Vodafone sell prepaid SIMs at the Port Moresby airport and in towns. Bring an unlocked phone and your passport. Highlands valleys, the Sepik and outer islands have long gaps.
- **Emergency:** 000 Response outside the main centres is limited. Call your lodge, operator or hotel first. They know which service can reach you and how long it will take.
- **Tipping:** Not customary, but guides and porters are different Restaurants and taxis expect none. Trek porters, dive guides and lodge staff generally do, and on Kokoda the operator publishes a suggested amount. Stick to it.
- **Photography:** Ask first, every time Dress and dance belong to clans, and a photograph taken without asking is a taking. At the shows people usually agree and may ask a small fee. Never photograph police, airports or state buildings.
- **Connectivity:** Patchy, and a reason to plan offline Mobile data works in towns and thins fast beyond them, and lodge internet is often metered satellite. Download maps and bookings before leaving town, and tell someone your plans.

## When to visit

- **Jan**: Deep wet season. Heavy rain across most of the country, Highlands roads cutting out, and river travel harder. Hot and humid on the coast
- **Feb**: The wettest stretch continues. Diving still runs in the islands but surface conditions are less reliable and flights are more prone to weather delays
- **Mar**: Still wet, with the heaviest rain generally ending late in the month. Green, empty of visitors, and cheaper for it
- **Apr** (good): The turn. Rain eases through the month and the Kokoda trekking season opens, though the track is at its muddiest early on
- **May** (good): The dry season begins in earnest. Good trekking, good visibility, and the Highlands start to firm up underfoot
- **Jun** (best): Reliably dry in the south and drier everywhere. The best month for Kokoda and the Highlands, and cool nights above 1,500 metres
- **Jul** (best): Dry and comfortable, with Port Moresby at its least humid. Trekking, birding and diving all workable at once
- **Aug** (peak): The Mount Hagen Show fills the Western Highlands and lodges book out months ahead. Dry, busy and the most expensive time to fly domestically
- **Sep** (peak): The Goroka Show and Independence Day on the 16th. The biggest cultural month of the year, and the one to book first
- **Oct** (best): The shows are over, the weather is still dry in most regions, and prices and pressure on flights drop back
- **Nov** (good): The wet returns gradually, first in the Highlands and the north. Trekking season closes around now and diving takes over
- **Dec**: Wet, humid and hot. Domestic flights fill with people travelling home for Christmas, so book well ahead if you come

## Fun fact

Papua New Guinea has 840 living languages, more than any other country and about one in eight spoken on earth. Valleys walled off by mountains, and coasts cut apart by swamp and sea, kept people apart long enough for their speech to diverge. Tok Pisin, a plantation creole, is how they now bargain.

## Stereotypes, sorted out

- **Myth:** It is too dangerous to visit. **Reality:** The warnings are real and specific. Foreign ministries name Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen for opportunistic, sometimes violent crime. Visitors manage it with arranged transfers, no walking after dark in those cities, and an operator who knows the ground. Read your government's advisory first.
- **Myth:** It is a backpacker country if you are tough enough. **Reality:** Logistics and land are the constraint. Domestic flights are the only practical link between regions, and they are costly and change often. Outside the towns you sleep in lodges and village guesthouses. Roughly 97 per cent of land is customary, so independent trips are arranged ahead with locals.
- **Myth:** The tribes perform for tourists. **Reality:** The Mount Hagen and Goroka shows began in the 1950s as gatherings between groups, and still are: the audience is mostly Papua New Guinean, clans compete for standing, and the dress is made by its wearers. Visitors are photographed as much as they photograph. Village sing-sings keep no tourist dates.
- **Myth:** Everything is untouched and pre-modern. **Reality:** Mobile phones are everywhere, Highlands coffee is exported worldwide, and liquefied natural gas is the largest export earner. What holds is clan and language identity underneath, so a person can carry a smartphone, speak three languages and still have their duties set by their village.

- Ask before you photograph, every time. Dress, adornment and dance are owned by clans, and a portrait taken without a word is a taking. At the shows people usually say yes and often ask for a small payment, which is fair.
- You arrive as someone's guest. With almost all land held under customary title, a walk, a beach or a cave normally has an owner, and your guide is also the person who negotiated your presence. Pay what the arrangement says, through them.
- Wantok is the organising principle. The word is Tok Pisin for "one talk", meaning people who share your language, and the obligations that run between them explain a great deal of what looks like inefficiency to an outsider.
- Betel nut (buai) is chewed constantly and the red stains on every pavement are the evidence. Port Moresby has restricted its sale and public chewing at various points, so follow the rule you are told on the day.
- Dress modestly, particularly women, and particularly outside the resorts. Knees covered is the practical standard, and a meri blouse or a laplap is normal everyday wear.
- Cash is how most things are paid for, in small notes. Cards work in Port Moresby hotels and a handful of Lae and Madang businesses, and nowhere else worth planning around.
- Sunday matters. Papua New Guinea is overwhelmingly Christian, church attendance is high, and in many villages Sunday is not a day for arranging anything.

## Famous Papua New Guinean faces

- **Sir Michael Somare**: The Grand Chief. Led independence from Australia in 1975 and was first prime minister.
- **Sir Vincent Serei Eri**: Wrote The Crocodile (1970), the first Papua New Guinean novel. Later governor-general.
- **George Telek**: Tolai singer from East New Britain, the country's best-known musician abroad.
- **Mathias Kauage**: Simbu artist whose paintings and prints took Highlands imagery into galleries abroad.
- **Dame Nora Vagi Brash**: The first woman playwright, a satirist of post-independence social climbing.
- **Ryan Pini**: Swimmer, four-time Olympian, and the first from the country to reach an Olympic final.
- **Dika Toua**: Weightlifter, the first woman to lift at an Olympics, at Sydney 2000. Five Games in all.
- **Justin Olam**: Melbourne Storm centre, 2020 premiership winner, Dally M centre of the year in 2021.
- **Sir Julius Chan**: Founding finance minister and twice prime minister, later governor of New Ireland.
- **James Marape**: Prime minister since 2019, from Hela, on a "take back PNG" resource platform.
- **Dame Carol Kidu**: Member for Moresby South and minister, often the only woman in parliament.
- **Russell Soaba**: Novelist and poet of Wanpis and Maiba, central to post-independence university writing.
- **Sir Paulias Matane**: Writer of dozens of books on village life and education, and eighth governor-general.
- **Michael Mel**: Western Highlands performance artist and curator working with Melanesian ritual forms.
- **Anslom Nakikus**: Reggae singer and songwriter from East New Britain, a leading name in the country's music.
- **Sanguma**: Band that set traditional music against Western instruments from 1977, and toured abroad.
- **Steven Kari**: Weightlifter, 94 kg Commonwealth champion at Glasgow 2014 and the Gold Coast in 2018.
- **Marcus Bai**: Winger who reached the NRL without Australian junior football. Melbourne Storm premier.
- **Toea Wisil**: Sprinter, Pacific Games champion and flag bearer at the London Olympics in 2012.

## Must-try Papua New Guinean food

- **Mumu**: The national dish: pork, roots and greens steamed for hours over hot stones in a pit.
- **Aigir**: Tolai chicken or fish with kaukau, aibika and ginger, cooked down in coconut cream.
- **Chicken pot**: Chicken in coconut milk with whatever greens and roots are to hand. The everyday meal.
- **Sago grubs**: Palm weevil larvae from felled sago palms, raw or skewered and roasted. Sepik food.
- **Lamb flaps**: Imported mutton belly, grilled at roadside stands. Not traditional, but everywhere now.
- **Kaukau**: Sweet potato, the Highlands staple. Baked in ashes, boiled, or buried in the mumu.
- **Saksak**: Sago starch washed from palm pith, set into a jelly dumpling or pan-cooked with coconut.
- **Aibika**: A hibiscus leaf, the everyday green, slightly gelatinous and simmered in coconut milk.
- **Pitpit**: Highlands cane vegetable, closer to asparagus on the plate, grilled in its husk.
- **Taro and yam**: Older staples that still carry status in Milne Bay. Trobriand yam harvests are ceremonial.
- **Reef fish and mud crab**: Whatever came in that afternoon: grilled reef fish, or mud crab in coconut cream.
- **Sago pudding**: Sago, mashed banana and coconut cream cooked into a thick, chewy dessert.
- **Tropical fruit**: Pawpaw, mango, soursop, guava and bananas nobody exports. See Gordons market.
- **Kulau**: Green drinking coconut, hacked open at the roadside for water, then split for the flesh.
- **Highlands coffee**: Arabica from around Goroka and Mount Hagen, the second farm export. Drink it there.

## FAQs

### Do you need a visa for Papua New Guinea?

Most visitors do, applied for online before flying through the Immigration and Citizenship Authority's portal at evisa.gov.pg. Allow well over a week, and use only the official portal: lookalike commercial sites charge a fee to fill in the same form. Package travellers will usually be asked for a letter from a tour operator registered with the Tourism Promotion Authority, so book the trip before the visa. Requirements change, so confirm them on the portal.

### Is Papua New Guinea safe to visit?

It needs planning. Foreign ministries consistently name Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen as the places where serious crime is common, and their advice is specific: use arranged transfers, not street taxis or the PMV buses, do not walk after dark in the cities, and keep valuables out of sight. Most visitors move between airports, lodges and operators who arrange the ground legs, which is how the tourism sector here works anyway. Outside the three cities, in the islands and the villages, the greater risks are medical and logistical. Read your own government's current advisory before you book.

### How do you get around Papua New Guinea?

By air, and this is the fact that shapes every itinerary. There is no road between Port Moresby and Lae, and none between the capital and the Highlands: the road network is a set of regional systems that do not connect. Air Niugini and PNG Air run the domestic network out of Port Moresby, schedules change and cancellations happen, so leave a buffer day before an international flight home and never plan a same-day connection you cannot afford to miss. On the ground, regions are covered by hired vehicles with drivers, lodge transfers and, on the rivers and between islands, motor canoes and small boats. Public motor vehicles (PMVs) are how the country moves and are not what foreign ministries advise visitors to use.

### When is the best time to visit Papua New Guinea?

May to October, the drier and less humid half of the year, and June to September is the sweet spot for trekking, the Highlands and the coast alike. The cultural calendar sharpens that further: the Mount Hagen Show falls in August and the Goroka Show in September around Independence Day on the 16th, and between them they are the reason many people come. November to April is the wet season, heaviest from December to March, with rain that closes Highlands roads and makes river travel harder. The Highlands and the Sepik collect rain in every month of the year, so "dry season" here means less wet.

### Can you walk the Kokoda Track independently?

Not in practice. The 96-kilometre track over the Owen Stanley Range is administered by the Kokoda Track Authority, which issues trekking permits and licenses the operators, and it crosses customary land the whole way, so a trek is arranged with a licensed operator and a local crew of guides and porters. It takes most people eight to ten days, and it is a serious mountain walk: steep, wet, hot at the bottom and cold at the top, with no road access to bail out from the middle. Trekking season runs roughly April to November. Train for it as you would for a multi-day mountain trek, not for a memorial walk.

## Related countries

- [Australia](https://wimup.com/country/australia.md)
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- [All of Oceania](https://wimup.com/oceania)

Part of [Oceania](https://wimup.com/oceania.md)

## Sources

- [Tourism board](https://papuanewguinea.travel/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)
- Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.