Port Moresby has a fearsome price reputation, but almost none of it applies to the street. War cemeteries, harbour ridges and stilt-village boardwalks cost nothing, market plates run K10, and PMV buses reach every suburb for a single kina.
Papua New Guinea's largest war cemetery holds 3,824 Commonwealth graves from the 1942-43 Kokoda campaign, set in mown terraces below the Owen Stanley foothills. Entry is free and the gates stand open 08:00-16:00 daily.
The Motu-Koitabu village strung on wooden walkways over Fairfax Harbour has housed sea-trading clans since well before 1873. Walking the boardwalks costs nothing, though custom expects you to ask a village elder or church warden first.
The limestone ridge behind Town still carries WWII gun emplacements and tunnel mouths, and the crest opens a full circle over Fairfax Harbour, Ela Beach and the ranges. The access road is public and the climb takes about 25 minutes.
The hairpin pull-offs on Touaguba Hill above Konedobu give the cheapest sunset in the capital: container ships swinging in the harbour, then the lights of Hanuabada strung out over the water. Cars gather along the crest from about 17:30.
The capital's biggest produce market opens around 06:00 daily: Highlands kaukau and karuka nuts, coastal greens, betel bundles, and stalls grilling lamb flap over drums. Almost nothing on the tables costs more than a few kina.
Koki's market sits out over the water at the end of Healy Parade, selling reef fish, mud crab and crayfish landed that morning by Motu canoe crews. The cooked counter grills fish with lime for roughly K10-K15 a plate.
Boroko's pedestrian square is the budget-eating core of the city — Boroko Food World's hot counter, Big Rooster chicken, pie shops and kai bars ring the plaza, with a PMV hub on Angau Drive linking every suburb for K1.
PNG's largest mall, at Waigani, runs an air-conditioned food court where curry-and-rice, roast pork or noodle plates land at K12-K25, plus a supermarket for self-catering. Guarded car park, free wifi, open until about 20:00.
PNG's first national park, gazetted in 1969, sits 800 m up the Sogeri plateau: rainforest loop tracks, Raggiana bird-of-paradise display trees, and an escarpment lookout that takes in the whole city and Bootless Bay.
A run of granite chutes and clear swimming holes on the Laloki where Moresby families picnic every weekend. Landowners collect a small gate fee at the roadside and there are shade shelters, barbecue pits and cold-drink stalls.
The southern trailhead of the Kokoda Track, marked by wartime artillery and the arch above the descent to Goldie River. You can walk the first hour down into the valley and back for nothing more than the landowner gate fee.
The Laloki drops roughly 100 m into a gorge below the Sogeri road, visible free from the pull-off near the hydro station turn. Late afternoon light hits the falls face directly, and the spray keeps the gorge cool.