There are no direct flights to Papua New Guinea from Europe or the Americas. It's off the general backpacker trail, it's barely on the business radar of nearby Asia, and even Australians, Papua New Guinea's neighbour to the south, tend to know very little about the place. Yet it's home to over 7 million people, some 850 different languages, and some of the most beautiful natural landscapes on earth.

So it's time to talk about Papua New Guinea.

The country of Papua New Guinea (or PNG for short) takes up half of the island of New Guinea, sharing it with Indonesia. Humans first arrived here over 40,000 years ago, and the cultures that developed became massively diverse. Because there are dense jungles and very high mountain ranges across much of the country, it wasn't too easy to get around. Villages located only a few kilometres from each other often ended up with very little contact between them, and totally different languages. This immense diversity for such a small country is fascinating, but it's brought with it some modern challenges.

Language barriers, the difficulty in getting a road network across the country, and widespread poverty have meant that some villages remain time capsules in plenty of ways. I was lucky enough to travel to PNG back in 2007, and visited a village a 30 minute drive (then 30 minute walk after the road finished) out of a main town in the mountains. When I walked into the village, I was told that I was only the second white person who had ever been there. The first person was 10 years earlier, and they were sent there by a world famous food company to research whether the villages of PNG had herbs or spices that the rest of the world didn't know about. Like I said, this country is remote.

Poverty is a serious issue here, though, with 37% of the population living under the national poverty line. There are big challenges to get basic health and education out into all of the very remote villages, and recent mining developments in parts of the country have had a negative effect on the natural environment. PNG receives significant aid from foreign countries and NGOs, assisting the government's efforts to improve opportunities for the nation's people. But here's the good bit...

So who IS in Papua New Guinea, then?

I consider this country to be one of the world's best-kept secrets. There are some fantastic, friendly people, beautiful natural environments, and unique cultures. "Humans of Papua New Guinea" is a Facebook group set up by two PNG residents with the aim of showcasing their land and their people to the world. It's a tremendous way to put faces and stories to a place that is so unknown or misunderstood. Let's meet some people!