At midday on June 26th, 2016 I nervously made my way through the Baltimore-Washington International Airport with my new, overpacked Osprey backpack in search of the people who I would be staying with for the next three weeks. I was definitely late, as is normal for me and my family, but luckily I managed to find the group- they hadn’t left without me. While we waited for one last participant to arrive, I said goodbye to my parents and began to get to know the 13 other high schoolers. They were mostly students from the West Coast who decided to go on this trip to improve their photography skills. After talking for a few minutes we left our waiting spot and began our journey. Once we finally made our way through TSA and waited for what seemed like forever, we got onto our plane- ready for our 14 hour flight.

   This was the beginning to the most amazing and impactful experience I’ve ever had, my National Geographic Student Expedition to India. This was a three week program for high school students who could choose to focus on an “on assignment project” of either photography or anthropology and local cultures. We had a full itinerary set up for this program, from hiking in the Himalayas to ziplining through the palace of Neemrana. It was exactly what I needed to fuel my desire for travel for the summer, and I was beyond excited to be able to take part in this experience. I had been waiting for this trip for months, and it was finally here!

   Fast forward 14 grueling hours of trying to sleep, eating complimentary snacks, and watching movies in languages I couldn’t understand, and we finally landed. As soon as we stepped off the plane, however, we could feel the heat. Even though it was night time, it was so much warmer than what we were all accustomed to back home, which was even more noticeable due to the intense humidity. After taking what felt like forever to get through customs, we finally left the airport and were on our way back to our hotel, the Mantra. Since it was nearly midnight by this point, we all ate a small snack of fresh mangos, bananas, and digestive cookies (pictured below) before going to bed for the night.

   The next morning we woke up bright and early at 8 AM to start our day. It was time for breakfast, but somehow one girl was already sick enough to skip breakfast, and another threw up right at breakfast. Though it was worrisome, everyone turned out okay and we were able to get on with name games and orientation before going out into the city. We learned some basic words in Hindi, the main language of the region, and cultural norms such as not to point at people or wear clothes that expose too much skin. We then walked around the city, pouring sweat as soon as we stepped outside into the hot midday New Delhi sun, got lunch, and bought clothes from a local shop in order to help us assimilate into the culture a bit better. At night we returned to the hotel for dinner, where we met our “Nat Geo Expert” Sandesh Kadur who would be staying with us for the next week in order to provide us with local knowledge and help us improve our photography skills.

   After this overwhelming day of being plummeted into a culture extremely new and different from our own, we were all exhausted. We got to bed by 10 PM but didn’t get to sleep for long, because we had to wake up at 2 AM in order to catch a small flight which would be taking us deep into the Himalayas, where we’d be staying for the next week and a half.