One of the hardest parts of traveling to the Papua New Guinea highlands is knowing what to do when surrounded by forty people who behold you in utter rapture.

Stroll into any market in the Mt. Hagen region and you’ll soon have a captive audience that sees a white person every two or so years.

When someone dies Highlands of PNG, the village gathers for days in collective mourning, called a haus krai. To attend a funeral, where the bereaved wail loudly and publicly, is a journey that tries one’s body and emotions. That’s what we learned when we were invited to grieve for a man that was recently beheaded. Listen to the report.

It doesn’t take long to see that the eastern Australian backpacking trail, which stretches form Sydney to Cairns, is geared for the sub-30 set. Hundreds of young’uns, mostly European, flock to the Gold an Sunshine Coasts chasing sunny beaches, bountiful alcohol, and beach-beautiful bodies.

Nothing wrong with this, but it’s not for everyone. Which is the reason that travellers 30 and above are a rare sight: it’s easy for them to feel they have outgrown this kind of budget-minded tripping.

When he published his Round-the-World Travel Guide, Marc Brosius had the good sense to print, right on the first page, the following caveat:

“WARNING: This site has been known to change people’s lives!”

And wouldn’t you know it, it did.