Mahale Mountains National Park

The remote, splurge choice for chimpanzees. Mahale has no road access at all: visitors fly in by charter or scheduled aircraft from Arusha, Dar es Salaam or Kigoma, then finish by boat along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. It covers 1,650 square kilometers and holds the largest known chimpanzee population in Tanzania's protected areas, and sighting rates are very high in the June to October dry season. It is far larger, wilder and more remote than Gombe, so it suits travelers who want a chimp trip to be the whole vacation rather than a day on a gorilla itinerary.