‍After 3 months in India, I returned to the U.S. with intense onset effects of reverse culture shock and a gnarly stomach bug that had dropped me 20 pounds in weight. I was a walking skeleton taking up permanent residency in the latrine. But for all the short-term pain, I would still consider India one of the greatest travel experiences.

India is the travel equivalent of a heroic psychedelic trip, where each bit of human stimuli is pulled in every direction. There’s no escaping it. It’s best to dive right in like a kid in a ball pit at McDonalds. Some days you’ll have the best days of your life, while other times you’ll want to smack a stray dog. You can’t get one without the other in India.