Finding a road less travelled these days is hard — with tourism and travel such a boom industry it can often feel that anywhere worth visiting is most likely overrun by hordes.

So it felt quite strange: Here I was standing in some of the biggest and best Roman ruins I’d ever seen. The backdrop was a stunning Mediterranean Sea with a climate to match and all in a safe, secure and certainly stable country, and yet as I looked around there was something missing — where were all the other people? It was slightly puzzling, but then this was Libya, a slightly puzzling place.

The ruins in question were Leptis Magna, a town dating back to around 1100 BC — at one point an extremely important trading town of the Roman Empire. Walking through the huge arch on the edge of town, clambering over the old market and sitting on the steps of the old amphitheatre, I could really imagine the thriving port of yesteryear, with traders heading in from Rome to sell their amphora of wine amid the bustling gossip of the town.

If this were Pompeii, let’s face it, I’d be fighting through legions of fellow tourists, audio guides pressed to their ears. So, to have such an impressive site to myself was absolute bliss, if a little weird.

Weird also described my later experience in Tripoli’s souk. Anyone who’s ever shopped in Morocco or Egypt will, at some point, have been wrestled to the floor for committing the apparent crime of leaving a stall without buying anything. But here, there was a noticeably less frantic, even laidback feel.

Strangely, even when I was intent on buying something (the leather jackets are really good), getting someone to help was quite hard. As a seasoned traveller, I almost felt cheated by the lack of hassle. And later, when a stall owner said I could have a necklace for nothing when I’d asked its price, well, I could feel veins in my head pulsing with incomprehension.

“It’s not that we are not entrepreneurial,” my guide Mahmud patiently explained. “It’s just that we are not only interested in money. It’s the same with tourists. We want people to come here, but we don’t want masses of people if that will change our country.”

It’s just five years since Libya was considered to have taken responsibility for its past actions — most notoriously the Lockerbie bombing. With the removal of sanctions against it, the country was re-admitted to the international community, but such was the media blackout that existed in coverage of the country during its 15 years in the wilderness that many people’s perceptions of the nation remain murky. Many assume it to be dangerous without quite knowing why.

The truth is that under the constant gaze of Libya’s poster boy, Colonel Gaddafi, the country is as safe a place as any to visit. And with 2,000km of virgin Mediterranean coastline, world class ruins like Leptis Magna, a beautifully vast and empty desert to explore and the extra spice provided by socialism, you’d think it would be well placed to create a vibrant tourism industry, something which would also address the unemployment problem here.

The sanction period has bought the country some time to reflect on the experiences of countries like Morocco or Egypt, which have developed rapidly while Libya has sat on the sidelines. Egypt for instance welcomes around 6 million visitors a year compared to Libya’s 100,000 or so, but the Libyans I spoke to want to avoid such mass tourism.

Over in the Green Mountain region in the east of the country is a hint of how things might turn out. This area is peppered with incredible examples of Greek and Roman antiquities — Cyrene the most celebrated. Just a few hundred kilometres away, the hottest temperature on Earth was recorded — 57.8 degrees Celsius — but here, the tree-lined mountains create a far cooler climate.

Under the guidance of Gaddafi’s son, Seif-al-Gaddafi, a massive project has begun in the region to create what is claimed will be the world’s most ambitious eco-tourism project. Three or four resorts will kick things off, each will be designed to complement the natural environment. Renowned architects Foster and Partners have been brought in to manage the project that will eventually cost billions.

“We have that rarest of opportunities in Libya because it’s virgin territory. We can really create something special and show how tourism can and should be,” says Stefan Behling, a senior partner at Fosters.

Their extraordinarily ambitious plans involve building chalets into a shear cliff face, which seen up close is just impossible to imagine. Khalid, the local engineer on the project, said: “It will be like a miracle when this is built. This will be a symbol of the new Libya.”

And when these resorts are built, a new airport and a redesign of the coastline are planned, all with the same eco guiding principles and all aimed at attracting small numbers of high end visitors: Small numbers, massive project.

Nearby in the Graeco-Roman town of Tolmeitha, I wandered, again alone, through the cisterns which had once stored water for the inhabitants. Water has always been an issue here. One thing you often hear Libyans proudly talking about is the “Great Man Made River” — Gaddafi’s answer to water supply.

Water is pumped from under the desert hundreds of kilometres away and brought to the coast where most Libyans live, for farming and drinking. Around here you can see the enormous pipes — some big enough for buses to drive down, they say — and reservoirs used to store the water.

It is an illustration that, for all its problems, Gaddafi’s central control has the ability to pull off massive projects other countries wouldn’t even dream of. And, looking at some of the incredible architectural feats that have been pulled off here over the centuries, you wouldn’t bet on yet one more in the Green Mountain scheme. But just in case, why not visit before the tourist tap gets turned on any further? - TODAY/sh

The writer is a reporter and producer of fast-track, a BBC World News (Starhub Cable TV Channel 13) travel programme designed to appeal to viewers who travel for both business and pleasure. The programme is aired on Tuesdays at 5.30pm and 8.30pm, Wednesdays at 11.30pm and Thursdays at 3.30pm.