Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# the ocean is my oyster Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Papua New Guinea
frisbee 07:01 UTC 20 Jun 2013 | I'm thinking about entering Papua New Guinea from Jayapura, and then having some time in Papua New Guinea, then flying around to wherever using some sort of airpass that takes in some South Pacific countries. I'm not that fussed about where I go, and wouldn't mind some sailing either. If I use an airpass, are any available anyway from Papua? If they are, what websites should I be looking at? If they're not, how easy is it to get around using ferries,yachts, mailboats, whatever? I'm a bit flexible with this sort of thing. I'll consider anything really. Let me know. Cheers. |
Laszlo 20:24 UTC 23 Jun 2013 | Some bad news: Sailing is not really a reliable option as public boat connections between countries are VERY limited (plenty domestic ones though) and there are no longer any really worthwhile airpasses either. Your best bet to move from country to country will be individual oneway tickets on the regional airlines. Note that each country will require an onward ticket as a condition of entry. | 1
frisbee 01:38 UTC 24 Jun 2013 | That's not good. Ta for replying though. | 2
spakatumas 11:19 UTC 22 Jul 2013 | There is no air pass with Air Niugini and they are your main carrier throughout PNG. You can also get around to some extent on Airlines PNG. There are second tier "airlines" but they are not well coordinated. The only Pacific routes out of PNG are via Solomon Islands on Air Niugini and Solomon Airlines. Both airlines have well organised websites so you can do your research there. Prices are steep! From Solomon Islands your choices are marginally better: southward to Vanuatu, East to Fiji, or North on the rarely travelled Micronesian loop (Kirabati, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands and Nauru) on Our Airline. Pacific routes are a bit weird. The Maori/Polynesian routes (Cooks, Niue, Samoa, Tonga) are best serviced from NZ. All said and done, unless you have the money to exit PNG via Solomons and/or you badly want to avoid a developed country, its probably more practical to fly from PNG to Brisbane Australia and then pick-up cheaper Pacific flights from there. The boat option is worthwhile if you have time. The network through Solomons is surprisingly good by Pacific standards. I think Laszlo has written up some of these from a few years ago. All depends on your available time and your level of patience. Good luck! | 3
Laszlo 04:07 UTC 25 Jul 2013 | Actually, Air Niugini also has (or at least had) a route from PNG to Fiji. A predictably expensive one, of course. | 4
alexander_vi 11:34 UTC 27 Jul 2013 | The Air Niugini and Airlines PNG sites worked fine for domestic flights. But when I was planning my trip down there I kept on getting errors for Air Niugini international flights. They have direct flights to Tokyo but it never shows up on any standard search I do, probably because the cost is predictably expensive. | 5
frisbee 15:50 UTC 02 Aug 2013 | Thanks for replying everyone. | 6