Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

the ocean is my oyster

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Papua New Guinea

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.

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.

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That's not good. Ta for replying though.

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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!

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Actually, Air Niugini also has (or at least had) a route from PNG to Fiji.
A predictably expensive one, of course.

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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.

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Thanks for replying everyone.

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