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A quick explanation about the biggest risk in PNG and the perils of hiring an untrustworthy guide.
This post is not about whether Papua New Guinea is safe to travel to — I already wrote that one. Instead, we’re talking specifically about guides. Local guides will be your lifeline in Papua New Guinea. They will guide you up the silty waters of the Sepik, handle tribal negotiations, and navigate any problems that may arise. Trust me, travel in Papua is fraught with problems. But the wrong local guide in Papua New Guinea will also mislead you, milk you dry of money, and in some cases— take your trip deposit and leave you stranded at the airport on arrival, never to be seen at all.
But getting a random, cheap guide in PNG is so tempting. One look at the price tags of most group tours and online guide companies for even a week-long PNG excursion, and you might consider taking the risk. But there is a better way. Trust me, it’s not worth the high chance of getting swindled for the small chance you’ll score a super budget-friendly trip to Papua New Guinea.
Dive into this guide to learn about the scam and also how to avoid it.
The Most Common Papua New Guinea Guide “Scams”
We’re going to call them scams, but in some of these instances, it seems to just be how business is done here. It certainly feels like a scam if it happens to you.
1. Your Guide Takes Your Deposit and Is Never Heard From Again.
Unfortunately, this is the most common theft in Papua New Guinea. Over the years, many guides have figured out they can just take the $1,000 or so dollars you send them as a deposit for your trip and run with it. They buy themselves a bus, pay off their debts, or embark on some other business venture after scamming a few tourists. These guides are black-listed within the Papuan guiding community, sure, but you might not know this after you stumble upon one positive review of a tour they actually did complete.
How to Avoid This: It’s not foolproof, but you should absolutely Google the name of any guide you are planning to use. I found two in particular whose theft of tour deposits is well documented online.
2. Halfway Through the Trip, the Sum You Agreed Upon Is Suddenly Not Enough.
Imagine this, you’re three days by canoe up the mighty Sepik River in a remote village when your guide approaches you— “I’m sorry, but we are out of money. We need 6,000 more kina to get back to Wewak. 8,000 more to complete the tour.”
A $1,500-$2,000 miscalculation seems impossible and must be a nefarious way to money grab. But what are you going to do way out here in the jungle? When the option is money or being left for dead? Okay, slightly dramatic, but still. And the truth is, your guide is very likely out of money.
It seems that often many inexperienced guides or new guides will agree to a low budget-friendly price, thinking they can make it work, but then once on the road, costs start racking up, and they have gravely miscalculated. You’re left footing the bill if you want to get home. Tourism is super new in PNG. Currency is also relatively new. Most Papuans, including guides, are subsistence living, which means they aren’t exactly earning a steady income and budgeting. They don’t actually know how much things are going to cost when they take a foreigner out traveling because they don’t do these things themselves.
You might be thinking…well that’s not really my problem. Poor budgeting skills are on the guide. I can’t be held responsible for anything other than what we agreed upon. Sure. But that guide likely doesn’t have a single dollar to his name, let alone the $500 in petrol that’s needed to get you back to civilization. So, it’s kinda all semantics at that point. And because you used a random guide and not a company, you have zero recourse to hold them accountable.
How to Avoid This: You want a guide who has done this trip before. Not just lives in the region you’re going to visit (but that certainly is also a criterion you should follow). They have experience taking tourists around and know how much to charge you.
3. Your Well-Researched and Reputable Guide Doesn’t Show Up at the Airport — Instead, It’s Some Other Guy.
Your choice of guide seems to have found a higher bidder. Or maybe he doesn’t want to go after all and just skims a little profit off the top. Either way, he sends a usually inexperienced guide to handle you, and you’re at risk of #2. Perhaps the tour will go fine, or perhaps the guide will know little about the region, and you’ll have a less-than-ideal experience.
These three unfortunate problems are why hiring a guide should come from reputable companies or recommendations, and not just choosing the cheapest bidder.
How to Avoid This: Maintain a dialogue with your guide via WhatsApp before the trip and make it clear that you are looking forward to meeting them and wouldn’t want to be passed off on a stranger. The less communication, the more likely they are considering the ol’ switcharoo.
How to Hire a Top-Notch Papua New Guinea Guide
A quick overview of the very basic things you should do before booking a guide in Papua New Guinea.
- Use my independent travel guide to Papua New Guinea. (*coming soon*)
- Google them. A lot of the scammiest guides have horrible reviews on TripAdvisor.
- NEVER wire a large deposit. It will be spent before you arrive. The exception to this is if you are hiring a guide through a proper company, where you would have recourse to get the money back. Obviously, these are the more expensive options, but if you are booking with an online agency, then you shouldn’t worry.
- Pay them cash on arrival. While lots of guides will want a deposit, you should just tell them you’ll pay cash on arrival.
- Take Reddit guides with a grain of salt. Lots of people use Reddit for guides. I’ve seen mixed experiences on PNG listed one.
- Book one guide for one region. Underrated tip, but guides don’t pop about into different regions of PNG unless they work with the BIG (expensive) companies.
- Your highland guide should be from the highlands. And he should have run this trip before. You don’t want to be the trial run.
The people of Papua New Guinea are lovely and kind. The tourism industry here is still in its fledgling years, so there is bound to be some bad apples taking advantage of a new system in a country with little development. Also, there are likely to be many mistakes made by guides who are just starting out in their businesses. It’s usually not nefarious. Just poorly run.
Don’t be afraid to hire a guide in Papua New Guinea, just don’t put all your trust in people too soon.
My Choice For Local Guides in Papua New Guinea?
Not to bury the lead here, but obviously, I used some INCREDIBLE guides in PNG. I have three I can wholeheartedly recommend. If you contact them before reading my “Independent Travel in the Highlands Guide” or my “How much does a trip to PNG cost” guide…you’re going to have to do a lot of negotiating. I’ve outlined the exact trip you could ask for and the cost of it in those blog posts for my budget-savvy travel friends. Otherwise, these guys will assume you want the FULL treatment and will pitch ya a tribe-packed (but more expensive) trip. Really, the choice is yours.
- Highlands Guide (Asaro): Cafii +675 7008 3090
- Highlands Guide (Chimbu): Kawage +675 7446 3025
- Sepik River Guide: Mike +675 7269 5503
You can contact them on WhatsApp after reading all my independent travel in PNG blog posts. Choosing a guide is the single most important thing you’ll do for your trip in Papua New Guinea. Because even if you travel entirely independently, you’ll need them to access certain areas of the country. Sure, maybe it won’t be a full week-long all-inclusive private hire, but you simply can’t get by traveling in PNG entirely without them.
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