Tip Sheet.

Byline: Sana Butler With Carter Dougherty in Congo, Ginanne Brownell, Sarah Sennott, Peter Suciu, Claudia Kalb

TRAVEL

Trips For Trailblazers

By Sana Butler

If you relish beating the crowds to up-and- coming destinations, you should be looking at central Africa, and at Libya. The North African nation has long been popular among British, German and Italian tourists. Now the Americans are coming. Since Washington lifted a 23-year-old travel ban to Libya in February, more than a dozen U.S. tour operators have begun organizing trips. The Libyan Embassy in Canada, which currently accepts North American applications, received more than 60 U.S. requests in March alone.

There is plenty of reason to go. Libya boasts five World Heritage sites--including Leptis Magna, the largest and best-preserved Roman city outside Italy--and Cyrene, an ancient Greek city that's home to the temples of Zeus and Apollo. The accommodations are improving, too; Tripoli has the five-star Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel, and the Netherlands and Italy recently announced plans to build resorts along the Mediterranean coast.

Adventurers have been heading to war-ravaged Uganda and Rwanda since the United States and Britain lifted travel restrictions nearly two years ago. The chief attraction: tracking the region's 650 remaining mountain gorillas. Rwanda issued 7,305 gorilla-trekking permits in 2003--up from 2,155 in 2001.