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Travel and Tourism in Papua New Guinea
Travel alerts, currency, climate, transit, health, and safety information for visitors to Papua New Guinea.
Practical Information
Travel alert status, currency, climate, and transit details.
- Travel Alert Status
- Level 3: Reconsider Travel
- Time Difference
- UTC+10 (15 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time) time zone note: Papua New Guinea has two time zones, including Bougainville (UTC+11)
- Currency
- kina (PGK)
- Climate
- Papua New Guinea lies wholly within the Tropics, and its climate is monsoonal. The "wet" northwest monsoon season extends from December to March and the "dry" southeast monsoon from May to October. Average annual rainfall is high, ranging from 80 to 100 inches. Although many areas have a wet and dry season, these terms are relative. Even in the so‑called dry season, 2–4 inches of rain per month fall in most areas. Many areas receive more than 200 inches, but a few, like Port Moresby, lie in a rain shadow and receive 40 inches or less annually. Although tropical, temperatures are not extreme. Most lowland, coastal, and island areas have a daily average temperature of 81°F, and seasonal variations are slight. In the highlands, temperature varies with altitude. At 6,000 feet, the average temperature is 61°F; daytime temperatures rise to 90°F and nighttime temperatures fall between 40°F and 50°F. Lowland humidity is uniformly about 80% with very little seasonal variation. Humidity fluctuates more in the highlands where temperatures are lower.
- Language(s) Spoken
- In Papua New Guinea, languages fall within two basic language stocks: Melanesian and Papuan. English is the official language and is taught in public schools. The language used at home, however, is almost always that of one’s language group. Melanesian Pidgin (Tok Pisin) is the most widely used language. Motu is the most common indigenous language, used primarily in the Papuan region.
- Ethnic Groups
- Melanesian, Papuan, Negrito, Micronesian, Polynesian
- National Holiday
- Independence Day, 16 September (1975)
- Geographic Coordinates
- 6 00 S, 147 00 E
- Location
- Oceania, group of islands including the eastern half of the island of New Guinea between the Coral Sea and the South Pacific Ocean, east of Indonesia
- Airports
- 559
Destinations
Regions and cities, top sights, national parks, UNESCO sites, and festivals for visitors.
Highlands Region
The highlands of Papua New Guinea rise dramatically from the northern and southern coastal plains into a series of broad, fertile valleys separated by mountain ranges whose peaks exceed four thousand meters. This is the most populous region of the country, home to perhaps half of Papua New Guinea's total population, and it is also the most culturally spectacular, a landscape where traditional life continues with a vitality and flamboyance that is genuinely astonishing to the outsider.
The gateway to highlands tourism is Goroka, the capital of Eastern Highlands Province, a pleasant town of around twenty thousand people situated at an altitude of approximately 1,600 meters that gives it a temperate climate welcome after the coastal heat. Goroka is best known internationally as the home of the Goroka Show, one of the world's great cultural festivals and the event that has put Papua New Guinea on the international tourism map more than any other single attraction.
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Health and Safety
Medical facilities, vaccinations, disease risk, and sanitation conditions.
Medical facilities in Papua New Guinea vary greatly between larger towns and remote areas. Medical facilities in larger towns are usually adequate for routine problems and some emergencies. However, equipment failures and shortages of common medications can mean that even routine treatments and procedures (such as X-rays) may be unavailable. Medical facilities may be inaccessible in some rural areas. A hyperbaric recompression chamber for diving emergencies is available in Port Moresby.
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