Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# Family trip to PNG Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea
perky70 14:33 UTC 22 Feb 2009 | Hi All, I just wanted to post a thread about the misconceptions people have about PNG. We recently spent 2 months travelling in PNG with our 3 kids and just had the best trip. As others have commented, there are dangers anywhere but we had very little concerns for our safety while we were there. We travelled around in pmvs the whole time, went everywhere unescorted, hitchhiked (only in cities or towns, never in remote spots) and basically wandered around freely (although never at time or in places we were warned against). The kids had the best time and we all made amazing friends of both locals and other travellers. The locals are really keen to eliminate the poor exposure PNG gets and some conversations are really sad when they express their embarrassment and shame at how a few bad apples get all the press in 'Western' countries while the 99.9% of beautiful generous people get very little press. The main issue we had revolved around access to money. ATM often don't work, or they are situated INSIDE the bank and so you must be there during opening hours during which time there are MASSIVE queues. In relation to accommodation, we would always roll up to towns or villages with nothing planned and things always worked out for us. Either we would stay in local hotels, guesthouses, or someone in the village would put us up. I would highly recommend families travelling here but you must be open to adventure. If you want luxury, go someplace else. All in all, we would definitely go back and we came back with such a renewed sense of the goodness in people and a heightened respect for people that lead 'simple' subsistence lives. If you have any queries about travel in PNG I'm happty to answer if I have it. Perky |
Laszlo 07:33 UTC 26 Feb 2009 | Nice post, and an unusual one for the perspective on family travel. You've certainly deserved having that good time there! :-) | 1