Local guide for 2 middle aged woman Oct. 21-29 and Lae festival??

Hello from USA. I am coming from Maui Hawaii and my friend is coming from California

My friend and I have known each other for 30 years and are traveling together once in a lifetime to Papua New Guinea. I have done research but we want a local guide at the places we go. I assume the hotels have such but I am very open for suggestion.

We have both traveled extensively, but this is a new location and I am not used to the distance between locations.
When I went to Australia I rented a vehicle and in Bali I rent scooters...this is different.

We want to do the following as many do:
Fly POM to Mt. Hagan - Lae Festival- Madang and home

ONLY 7 days

The tour operators are many $5000 dollars. Way out of our league. The flights round trip for this are approx. $700 which is doable but they all seem to go back to POM and take away our day by going to Lae into POM and out of POM round and round. Is there an alternative airline or mode of travel with only this short time to go?

Who has been to this festival Oct. 24 25 2015 and can tell us if we need 2 days there?

Any flight or TOUR GUIDE info would be so appreciated. our trip is around the corner and we just booked it.
I enjoy a guide as it makes it easy.

Hi and welcome to Thorn Tree @awahl.
Hope you don't mind, but I have moved your thread over to our Papua New Guinea branch so it can be seen by people who are better qualified to answer your question.

All the best,
Cosima1

FLIGHTS

hagen, lae and madang are joined by roads so you can use PMV (a small bus) to travel between them

air nuigini seem to no longer fly between them only via POM but airlines PNG do still fly between them but it is expensive compared to PMV and may not be worth it

http://www.apng.com/ScheduleMap.aspx

http://www.airniugini.com.pg/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Air-Niugini-Paradise-Domestic-Map.pdf

LAE

lae is a big commercial/industrial/port city and is generally though of as not very nice nor very safe

the morobe festival is different to the other culture shows being more of an agricultural and trade show

http://www.papuanewguinea.travel/Events

"Visitors to the show can expect to see stunning exhibitions on Papua New Guinea culture, agriculture, horticulture, livestock, commercial businesses, NGO's, schools and institutions.
Some of the highlights of the Morobe show over the years, have been motorbike jumping, traditional dress beauty pageants and cowboy-rodeo style events."

what are you hoping to see in PNG ?

thank you
We are trying to get around without a guide but it seems that might be a good idea. As I understand 2 woman are not recommended to go down sepik without assistance. Correct?

Has anyone been to the Morobe show?

nobody should go on the sepik without assistance

......unless you bring your own boat!

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