1 Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania
With precipitous, forested mountains plunging down to the turquoise waters of Lake Tanganyika, this remote park in western Tanzania is scenically the most stunning of all the chimpanzee reserves. The primates are very well habituated and frequently ignore human-imposed park rules about keeping a safe distance, strolling right up to visitors for a closer look. For the lucky tourist, this means that encounters here are second to none. However, the journey here is either very long or very expensive.