Things to Do in Port Moresby

About Port Moresby

The salt sting hits first, carried on the trade wind that slides between the Owen Stanley Range and the Coral Sea. By 5:30 AM you’re elbow-to-elbow with betel-chewing vendors at Koki Fish Market, watching dug-out canoes unload reef fish that will be wrapped in banana leaves and sold for 12 PGK (3.20) before the sun clears Fairfax Harbour. Port Moresby doesn’t ease you in: the red dust of Waigani Drive swirls around parliament’s masi-designed façade, while behind Boroko’s plastic-tarp hawker stalls, the air smells of wood smoke, diesel, and the sweet rot of pawpaws left too long in the sun. Ela Beach curves five kilometers of coconut palms just ten minutes from downtown, but the sand is littered with coral chunks and the current rips hard enough that locals swim only at dawn. The city’s honest trade-off is this: you’ll see tree-kangaroos thirty minutes up the Sogeri Road at Varirata National Park (entry 20 PGK / 5.30) but you’ll lock your car doors crossing from Town to Gordons after dark. Worth it? Absolutely—because nowhere else on earth gives you Friday night kundu-drumming at the Arts Theatre, a 4 PGK (1.06) SP Lager sweating in your hand, while container ships glide past like glowing apartment blocks.

Travel Tips

Transportation: PMVs—beat-up Toyota HiAces with cracked windshields—charge 2 PGK (0.53) from downtown to Gerehu, but learn the hand signal for your suburb or you’ll ride the circuit twice. Download the DiDi app; fares to Jacksons Airport run 45 PGK (12) instead of the 120 PGK taxi mafia demands. Don’t walk after 7 PM—hire a car with driver (400 PGK / 106 per day) through your hotel; the roads aren’t lit and packs of village dogs rule the verges once the sun drops.

Money: ATMs swallow foreign cards more often than they spit cash. Withdraw at BSP branches on Champion Drive, limit 2,000 PGK (530) per transaction, and carry small kina notes—most street stalls can’t break 50 PGK. Credit cards work at Airways Hotel and the big supermarkets at Vision City Mega Mall, but betel nut sellers on Kreer Heights only take coins. Always count change; counterfeit 50 kina notes circulate, especially around Boroko bus stop.

Cultural Respect: Point with your chin, not your finger—gestures matter here. When visiting Hanuabada stilt village bring loose tobacco (10 PGK for a pouch) for the elders; it’s the price of photographs. Sunday is church day—everything shuts by 10 AM, even the hospital gates. Ask before photographing singsing groups at Ela Beach craft market; a 5 PGK tip buys you five frames and a smile that isn’t forced.

Food Safety: Eat what’s hot from the pot. Mumu stalls at Gordons Market serve sweet potato and pork steamed underground for 8 PGK (2.12) and it’s safer than the sushi counter at Vision City. Bottled water only—tap water comes brown from the pipes some mornings. Try saksak (sago pudding) from the lady under the orange umbrella opposite Holiday Inn at 6 AM; she’s been there twelve years and hasn’t poisoned anyone yet. Avoid reef fish on Mondays—no boats go out Sunday, so Monday’s ‘fresh catch’ is Saturday’s leftovers.

When to Visit

May to October is the sweet spot: trade winds drop humidity to 70 %, daytime hovers at 29 °C (84 °F) instead of the 32 °C (90 °F) swamp of December-January, and hotel rates at Holiday Inn Express fall 35 % from the 600 PGK (160) Christmas peak. July brings the Hiri Moale Festival—three days of lakatoi canoe races and night-long singsing on Ela Beach, worth timing for even if flights from Brisbane jump 25 %. November marks the start of the wet; expect 300 mm of rain that month alone, roads flooding waist-deep around Waigani, and dengue warnings posted at airport arrivals. January-February is brutal: 100 % humidity, 35 °C (95 °F) days, and the kind of mould that grows on your passport. March-April sees the shoulder season—hotel prices down 20 %, fewer cruise ships clogging Fairfax Harbour, and mornings clear enough to spot the Owen Stanley peaks from your 8th-floor room at Grand Papua. Families should avoid school holidays in late June when domestic flights double and kids scream through every hotel pool. Solo travelers, though, might love September: quiet beaches, 18 PGK (4.80) plates of kaukau at Boroko produce market, and the kind of sunset that makes the Coral Sea look like someone melted a disco ball.