I don't know if I'd go to another country specifically for an animal, but I did decide to go to one of the only independently verified certified tiger sanctuaries in Thailand so that I could see and touch a tiger without feeling bad about their living conditions.
It was crazy to touch a tiger. It was crazy to see one, but it was really wild to touch one. Because they sure as hell were not sedated. One of them started sneaking up on me around the perimeter of the enclosure and after I tapped the guard on the shoulder and pointed him out, the guard had to like air-poke it back with a stick basically and asked me to walk back toward the exit, which was an insane security situation to find myself in.
I remember later I was standing on the outside of the reserve looking at some of the tigers along the fence posts because there were like covered huts around the perimeter of the reserve that the tigers lived in, and this couple walked up with their baby in a little carriage and all of the tigers' heads whipped toward the baby and followed it up and down the sidewalk the entire time the couple was pushing the baby around. The couple got uncomfortable pretty quickly and decided to leave. It was so clear all the tigers wanted to eat that baby.
Oh you know what, honorable mention panda, i did go to the Sichuan Panda reserve specifically to see the pandas, although that was not a very difficult trip and I was already living in Chengdu, there's a train that goes straight to the reserve.
Tarsiers are strange, with large brown eyes and fragile and only found in a few remaining wild locations. Also they are distant relatives on the same tree as humans genetically and the other dry nosed primates. So I think worth the trip to see some if you are already in South east Asia. I visited the Tarsier Sanctuary on Bohol in the Philippines a few years ago. The founder used to catch them for pets or zoos as a young man but has now devoted his life to saving them.
Awesome. Totally agree, tarsiers are super cool looking; their eyes are surreal, I saw some when I was in Malaysia a few years back, they had a little tarsier house near where I was.
I am going to the Philippines next month and I will keep bohol on mine thanks.