IN 1905, Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, the largest in Africa, has been all but ignored as a wildlife-viewing safari destination because of its vast, trackless wilderness, its remoteness from Tanzania's popular northern circuit, and its reputation as a haunt for intrepid sport hunters. But if you'd rather take photos than trophies, you finally have access to a corner of this little-traveled hinterland. The Mbuyu and Rufigi River camps in northeastern Selous, where hunting is now banned, were recently refurbished as part of a government plan to steer tourists southward from the relatively crowded Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. A visit with Rwanda's Endangered Mountain Gorillas F or Rob Campbell and his five companions, the rewards of the tortuous climb up the slippery slopes of Mount Visoke in Rwanda's Parc des Volcans far outweighed their exhaustion and the layers of mud that clung to their trousers. After two and a half hours of bushwhacking through a tangled, misty jungle, they found themselves within yards of a family of 13 wild mountain gorillas. . . .
Some places are just too beautiful for their own good.
Consider Acadia National Park on Maine's Mount Desert Island. So beautiful is this 40,000-acre park of forested granite mountains overlooking tranquil ponds, dancing streams and churning ocean, that 4.3 million tourists came here last year. That's four times the population of the entire state. Despite stunning scenery and invigorating air, the atmosphere of the park and its surrounding areas sometimes seems more like a carnival than a trip back to nature, with tourists wreaking havoc on the natural environment and each other. The overload happens each July and August. . . .