By Maggie Sullivan

The rainforest is something you’ve just got to see to believe, so here are our picks for the best places to do just that.

1. Manu National Rainforest, Peru.
If the Amazon is the queen of rain forests, Manu is her crown jewel. Manu offers the chance to see everything from jaguars to macaws to caiman crocodiles. And if that’s not enough, the Manu Wildlife Center has strategically placed canopy platforms near fruiting or flowering trees that are regularly visited by both monkeys and riotously colorful birds.

2. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda.
Aptly named, this dense rainforest rests on the edge of the western Rift Valley of Africa. It is home to 300 mountain gorillas--more than half the world’s total population. These great apes are the draw for most, but the impenetrable forest holds more than one wonder. As Colobus monkeys jump from branch to branch screeching to announce your approach, you’ll walk along river trails and scramble up steep slopes to advance even deeper into an ancient forest that competes only with itself to gain astonishing heights in search of light.

3. Fraser Island, Australia.
One of the strangest ecosystems on Earth, this 70-mile island along the southern coast of Queensland is the only place in the world to claim a rainforest supported by sand. Listed as a World Heritage site, it is also home to one of the purest strains of dingoes (wild dogs, for those not fluent in Aussie) and more than 250 species of birds.

4. Talamanca Range/La Amistad Reserves, Costa Rica and Panama.
The Talamanca is where the critters of two continents (North and South America) and two oceans (Pacific and Atlantic) converge. On the Costa Rican side, it’s a laundry list of biodiversity: 205 species of mammals, 849 species of birds, 160 amphibians, 218 reptiles, 130 freshwater fish. And on the Panamanian side...well, it’s pretty much the same deal. On either side you’ll easily spy the resplendent quetzal in the canopy. (For the record, the superlative is part of its name, not our attempt to modify.)

5. Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand.
The South Island rarely disappoints those looking for adventure, but you wouldn’t think this land of bungee jumping and extreme skiing would be home to a world-class rainforest. Better yet, it’s the only place on Earth where you can step from an ancient, slow-moving glacier right into a thick temperate rain forest complete with thermal pools.

6. Sepik River, Papua New Guinea.
We’d love to list the entire island of New Guinea because its tropical forests and freshwater wetlands are equal in biological importance to those of the Amazon and Congo Basins. But even for the hardiest traveler, the Full Papua Monty is just too much. So we’ll stick with the amazing Sepik River region, where you can easily combine cultural wonders (carvings, totems, and elaborate haus tambaran, or "ancestor houses") with natural ones (like, say, 38 different birds of paradise).

7. Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, Washington, U.S.A.
Who knew there was a rainforest right in our own backyard? Wet and wild with huge 500-year-old trees, this temperate forest gets about 250 inches of annual rainfall, making its timber grow faster than anywhere else on Earth. But the greatest lure is the hiking--just about the best the world has to offer. With its majestic Hall of Mosses and Spruce Nature trails, you can wander through stands of towering conifers and maples adorned with long, thick drapes of moss and fern. Forest Primeval, indeed.

8. Kakum National Park, Ghana.
Listed by Conservation International as one of the planet’s ecological hot spots, this West African forest is not only one of the most diverse ecosystems on the continent, but also among the most endangered. Recently, however, tourism has surpassed timber among sources of foreign currency in Ghana, thanks in part to visitor-friendly improvements at Kakum--most notably a walkway suspended more than 88 feet in the air by the 300- to 400-year-old trees.

9. Batang Ai National Park, Malaysia.
Adventurous? Sure, what with the treks through steep jungle and journeys upriver to visit tribes all but left in the Stone Age. Yet the real draw to the hinterlands of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, is Batang Ai and its gentle giant, the orangutan. Alas, sightings in the wild are rare--more often you’ll just see abandoned nests--but you’re guaranteed to catch a glimpse if you visit the nearby Semenggok Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where orphaned or injured great apes are trained to survive in the wild.

10. Madidi National Park, Bolivia.
If you’re the type who’s always up on the next big thing, South America’s newest national park should be your next big trip. Formally designated in 1995, this 4.7-million-acre wonder in northwestern Bolivia has been called the most biologically diverse protected area in the world (sorry, Manu). Its ecosystems range from snow-capped Andes to cloud forest to lush lowland rainforest, and its fauna is just as diverse: spider monkeys, three-toed sloths, peculiar-looking peccaries, and pierid butterflies, whose wings mimic large green leaves. For a waterborne thrill, raft the Class III-V rapids of the Tuichi River, which runs straight through the heart of Madidi.

Maggie Sullivan is an assistant editor at iExplore.