In this article we will share the impact of mindfulness pedagogy on students in a short-term study abroad course in South Africa. During a one-month program for undergraduate and graduate students, we implemented an explicit critical contemplative pedagogy (Kaufman, 2017) that included daily mindfulness exercises and reflective journaling as a path to increase student consciousness toward embodied social justice. The curriculum focused on cultivating presence, ensuring well-being, and engaging in conscious social change as developed through mindfulness. Study abroad participants created space for transformation by taking time to apply and reflect on their learning in real life contexts (Elliott, 2023). This critical contemplative curriculum and explicit mindfulness approach to experiential learning while examining systemic racism and post-apartheid dynamics in South Africa was powerful. In this article, we describe the curriculum we developed, the pretravel orientation and post-travel debriefings, the mindfulness practices we used and excerpts from student journal reflections. Our goal is to empower educators to integrate similar wellness strategies into experiential learning experiences in a relevant and meaningful way; one that leads to increased understanding of the self as an individual and representative of their societies and "Others" (Delpit, 2006).