"My shoes are gone," came the words as I slid on my shoes. I looked up in alarm at my friend. Her eyes were wide with disappointment. The feeling of dread rushed through me as I started searching desperately to find her shoes through the bushes. It was 2017 and it was the end of the full moon celebration in Rishikesh, India. We had taken off our shoes to go into a temple to witness the offerings people made to the Ganges River. My purse could only fit one pair of shoes. So we hid her running shoes under a bush, hoping no one would steal them. 

"The locals are notorious for taking shoes that are nicer than theirs." My yoga retreat leader's exact words rang through my head as I continued to search. After a while, we gave up, told our retreat leader and they bought sandals for her, made from straw until we could find a place with running shoes. 

Fast forward to the present, my friend and I laugh about that night when her shoes were stolen. "You haven't fully immersed yourself in India if your shoes weren't stolen, you didn't step in poop, or didn't sweat," she always tells me. 

Those traveling experiences taught us more than we thought. Traveling is a snippet in time to learn about how to not only navigate a different culture but to navigate different experiences building your confidence and survival skills in unfamiliar situations. It gives us more opportunity to know what to do in moments of unexpected circumstances and appreciate those "bad" experiences a little more than the good. 

A lot of the time we travel to collect unforgettable, fun experiences, and our expectations of these experiences are ruined when unexpected moments interrupt our plans. When we become more mindful of these experiences, we gain gratitude, more self-confidence, and awareness. Many times these experiences happen because we aren't educated about the other culture enough to understand why this would happen to us in the first place. And maybe we still won't fully grasp the culture or understand why those events took place, but it gives us more grit and mindfulness for the next unexpected experience.