Is Papua New Guinea safe enough to travel?

Hello,

I need some opinions of those who have travelled to PNG how safe it is to travel there.
My local travel agent is saying that PNG is not a holiday destination and people go there mainly
for business because the locals are dangerous and there is nothing to do there.

I was planning a 2 week holiday alone backpacking.
Cheers

Our resident PNG "expert" is travelling somewhere there at the moment, and may not have internet access for a while. Basically, it would depend on where you go, and where you stay.
Where are you, and where is your travel agent? You might get better information, for example in Australia than in Europe.
What would you like to do while you are in PNG?

I would like to go here also and have been researching it. It seems like it would be o.k. if you stayed on the beaten path but if
you don't, the tribesman still kill people and eat them and each other!! David Rockfeller disappeared while travelling into remote areas. They think
white people are ghosts!

Azraf, You would have to be a very long way off the beaten track for that to happen now. However, people are still close to their traditions, and enjoy showing them off, to impress visitors.

Read the Smithsonian magazine article Sleeping with Cannibals and see what you think!

Read the PNG link in my signo line.

Then all those other posts on the PNG branch of Thorn Tree.
These should tell you enough about the security situation there.

In brief, it is certainly no Singapore or Switzerland, but definitely not a no-go-zone either.

Most people who do go love it, but a few have nasty experiences and get turned off by them.

I might consider reading a Smithsonian article if you could supply a link.
However, I have lived and travelled long enough in Solomon Islands next door to PNG to take most articles documentaries and TV news shows with a large pinch of salt.

Wow... nothing to do???? Time to change travel agent!!!!

The article mentioned is not even about PNG but about West Papua.
And it's a typical piece of sensationalist bullshit, not even worth reading.
The only interesting thing about it is that it got to be published by Smithsonian, which very much puzzled everyone who knew the area and people concerned (I flew back from there today) and thus could judge its (poor) quality.

Thanks Laszlo for reinforcing my impression. Does the Smithsonian also have articles about shark calling in Solomon Islands? I suspect it would be in the same category as some of the documentaries I have seen.

This is the only S article I have read, and then only because others I travelled with brought it along, and (both) local missionaries all mentioned it, too.