To qualify the safety-related statements in the previous post - I am a 35-year old experienced independent male British traveller who has visited almost 100 countries. Over many trips and many years I have travelled overland from England to PNG, including crossing Indonesia by Pelni ferry over 5 months and 4 trips, each of which included independent travel around West Papua. I have travelled in several countries colored red on government travel advice sites where they advise against all travel, such as Afghanistan, the Mauritanian desert, northern Mali, southern Mindanao in the Philippines. I have been running a tour operator business in Arctic Siberia for the last 8 years. So although I do not have much experience in PNG, I do know a bit about independent travel in remote areas. I may, however, have a higher tolerance for risk than other travelers. I followed the security situation in the PNG Highlands for months before my trip and constantly asked locals what they thought about the safety of my proposed route during my time in PNG. Sometimes I changed my plans based on their advice, for example deciding not to take an overnight betel nut PMV from Madang to Mt Hagen and thereby losing 24 hours in Madang. I might have made some mistakes, however, such as traveling overland from Mendi to Tari and arriving at night, but that might also have just been local people worrying too much based on past incidents. And I think that if you could travel from Mendi to Tari during the day with a good local driver it would be safe.
Prices
Don’t expect value for money for anything in PNG. Expect to pay ridiculous prices for terrible accommodation with terrible service. Expect to pay slightly less ridiculous prices for public transport where they will throw in more people than you would think physically possible and which might not even depart on the right day if they do not get enough passengers. After South East Asia, this is going to be a shock to the system and is not really doable on a shoestring budget. In most places you can find dorm accommodation for $10 - $20 a night but it is of a VERY low standard compared to what you would get for the same price in South East Asia. If going for private hotel rooms you can pay $100 a night and get a single bed in a room with moldy walls, a broken shower, no free breakfast or internet, no shuttle bus and staff who do not even know local taxi numbers.
HOWEVER: some of the tour prices often quoted on this and other forums, or quoted by guides / tour companies over the internet if you try to organize everything in advance, are simply ludicrous even by PNG standards. I found this particularly true for Sepik River tours, which can be organized much cheaper on the spot.
Transport
Feel free to take PMVs. It’s a bit uncomfortable, you may end up waiting for a while, but if you’re on a budget it’s much cheaper than flying and is a great adventure in itself. You’ll meet loads of friendly people who will help you with the next stage of your journey and will see parts of PNG that most people fly over and miss out. It’s mostly very safe, other than parts of the Highlands Highway at night as mentioned above. Make sure you always get the first PMV in the morning and plan to arrive at your destination several hours before dark.
PMVs run almost every day between most obvious destinations, but get a bit less frequent on Friday afternoons, even less on Saturdays and are almost non-existent on Sundays. If you have a long way to go, the earlier you get there the better. In general try to head to the PMV stop or boat launch as soon as it gets light.
If you want to save money, have a flexible schedule and are the sort of person who likes meeting locals and seeing the country rather than hopping between certain set destinations then PMVs are a good way to go.
If you want to visit as many actual destinations in as short a period of time as possible and money is not an issue then you should probably stick to flying, although flights are not always completely reliable either from what I heard.
What to bring
For the Sepik - mainly just sunscreen and a hat for when traveling by canoe down the river. I didn’t find it necessary to bring food, water and mosquito net as others have recommended, as these were provided everywhere. Most villages have a container to collect rain water, a shop selling rice, noodles, tinned fish, biscuits, etc (although prices are up to 1.5 times more than in Wewak) and all the guest houses I saw had mosquito nets. If going to more remote communities than the villages within 2 - 3 hours of Pagwi then you may need to bring this all with you though. Also bring a torch and some kind of power block, as most places don’t have electricity to charge your camera. Bring very light clothing. You only ever feel comfortable when traveling by boat or at night. At other times it is almost unbreathably hot and humid.
For the Highlands - again sunscreen. Secondly some good footwear for walking. Probably trekking sandals are best, so that you can easily cross rivers and swamps. Around Tari and Koroba I didn’t ever find the need for warm clothing or even a jacket in the evenings as it is not too high up, during the day it is quite warm and I never spent much time outdoors at night anyway. If you are going higher up, like Enga Province or climbing Mt Wilhelm then of course you’ll need warm clothing.
Buy a Digicel SIM card as soon as you arrive and buy a data plan if you need internet. As I do a lot of work online while travelling I paid 230 kina for 10 gigabytes that lasts 30 days then another 25 kina per week for a call and texts bundle (60 minutes of calls and several hundred texts). Everywhere I went had internet that was good enough to use my iPhone as a modem for my laptop, upload files, watch films online, etc, apart from the Sepik villages and remote villages in Tari area. These places did not even have mobile reception.
Tribal traditions
On the Sepik nobody wears traditional dress other than when paid to do so by tourists. Some guides said they may do on remote tributaries like the April and May rivers, but I took this with a pinch of salt as I had done a lot of pre-trip research and seen no photos of such people. Kids are always running around naked and a few women will go around topless occasionally but that’s about it in terms of naked tribespeople.
In Tari and Koroba in the Highlands a few old people still walk around the villages in traditional dress. Traditional dress also seems to be worn for sing sings and other special events (ie not just the ones paid for by tourists), whereas on the Sepik I witnessed a sing sing (ie not one that I paid for) and everyone was in Western clothes.
However, other aspects of their traditions have been extremely well preserved - for example the architecture in every village on the Sepik and in remote Highlands villages, the art on the Sepik, and the wingmen culture in Tari. The fact that young men still go through the wig growing process with a teacher, and so many men own wigs, suggests that this bizarre and fascinating aspect of their culture is still alive to some extent and not done only for tourists.
Guides told me that in the remotest areas, such as the Hewa tribe area, Sepik - Enga border area or other border areas between two provinces far from regional centers and road networks, you can still find very remote people living in caves and with some people dressing traditionally. I have no way to confirm that of course - maybe something to explore on my next trip! My guide from the Sepik said that it’s possible to trek up into Enga Province from the Karawari River ( a tributary of the Sepik) in a few days. Probably take that to mean at least a week.
