Papua New Guinea

Port Moresby — a city of 400,000 with a reputation that precedes it — has the National Museum and Art Gallery (the finest collection of Melanesian art and cultural objects in the world — traditional masks, spirit boards, outrigger canoes and ceremonial objects from all PNG’s provinces), the National Parliament (a remarkable building with a traditional Haus Tambaran roof, 1984) and the Varirata National Park (1h from the city, the most accessible highland birding in PNG).

💡 Papua New Guinea has 840+ distinct languages — approximately 12% of all languages spoken on earth in a country of 10 million people. The average PNG language has fewer than 5,000 speakers. The most widely spoken are Tok Pisin (PNG Creole, understood by 4 million) and Hiri Motu, developed for trade. New languages are still being documented in the interior.

40-min flight from Port Moresby to Kokoda (KDE). The Kokoda Track — a 96km trail through the Owen Stanley Range at 2,190m altitude, crossing terrain so difficult it took the Japanese army from July to September 1942 to push the Australian forces back to Imita Ridge, where the battle turned — is one of the most historically significant and physically demanding treks in the Pacific.

💡 The Kokoda Campaign (July–November 1942) was Australia’s most consequential WWII engagement — 625 Australian soldiers died and 1,600 were wounded holding the Japanese advance 50km from Port Moresby. The terrain (94% relative humidity, daily tropical rain, 1,200m+ of daily ascent/descent through jungle) was the deciding factor. The track is still considered the most physically demanding accessible trek in the Asia-Pacific.

The Kokoda Track is walked in 7–10 days but a 2-day partial traverse gives a sense of the terrain — the jungle, the altitude changes (crossing from 50m to 2,190m and back), the village rest points, and the war memorials at Isurava (where the Australian stand of September 1942 is marked by four marble pillars inscribed with “Courage, Endurance, Mateship, Sacrifice”). Fly back to Port Moresby.

💡 The Isurava Memorial (2002, designed by Australian architect Lawrence Nield) marks the site of the most intense fighting on the Kokoda Track in August–September 1942 — four black granite monoliths inscribed with “Courage, Endurance, Mateship, Sacrifice.” The 39th Battalion (average age 18) held here for 4 days against Japanese forces 3 times their number.

45-min flight from Port Moresby to Goroka (GKA). Goroka — the capital of Eastern Highlands Province, at 1,600m — is the gateway to the Highlands culture, with the Goroka Show (third week of September, a sing-sing gathering of 100+ Highland tribes in traditional bilum, headdress, face paint and feathered costumes), the Baining Fire Dancers and J.K. McCarthy Museum.

💡 The Goroka Show and Mount Hagen Show (August) are the most spectacular cultural gatherings in Melanesia — Highland tribes from across PNG converge in traditional dress for competitive singing and dancing. Headdresses incorporating bird-of-paradise feathers, shells and ceremonial pigments have been worn at these gatherings for centuries; they represent the full range of PNG’s extraordinary cultural diversity.

1h30 flight from Goroka to Madang (MAG). Madang — a small port town on PNG’s north coast surrounded by bays and islands, consistently rated one of the finest diving destinations in the world — WWII wrecks (Japanese Zero fighters and Betty bombers visible at 10–30m), spectacular coral walls and the Madang Lagoon (protected, diverse reef with no current).

💡 Madang’s harbour was a major Japanese naval base in 1942–1944, and the seabed contains dozens of Japanese aircraft, ships and vehicles sunk during Allied air raids. The Betty bomber at 9m depth (diveable on a single tank from the surface) is one of the most intact WWII aircraft wreck dives on earth — the cockpit, engine cowlings and wing structure fully preserved.

1h15 flight from Port Moresby. Tufi — a cape on the southeast PNG coast, with fjord-like inlets carved by ancient rivers (unique in the tropics), coral reefs of extraordinary diversity in the Cape Nelson area and the most remote-feeling dive destination in Melanesia. Tufi Resort is the only accommodation on the cape.

💡 Tufi’s fjords (locally called inlets or harbours) are submerged river valleys created when post-glacial sea level rise flooded the V-shaped valleys cut by rivers through the Cape Nelson plateau. This is one of very few tropical fjord landscapes on earth — the combination of rainforest-covered cliffs, calm dark water and dense coral reef at the mouth is unique.

2h flight from Port Moresby to Kavieng (KVG). Kavieng (New Ireland Province) — a small colonial town with the finest shark diving in PNG (grey reef sharks, white-tip sharks and regular encounters with silvertip sharks at the channel passes), traditional Malangan ceremonial woodcarving and the nearest access to the Bismarck Sea.

💡 The Malangan funerary tradition of New Ireland Province produces the most elaborately carved wooden sculptures in Melanesia — complex interlocked compositions of humans, birds, fish and geometric forms, carved for funerary ceremonies and then allowed to decay, representing the release of the spirit. The finest examples are in European museum collections; the tradition continues in villages around Kavieng.