This paper focuses on the professional development of formal science educators through extraordinary experiences that occur within the realm of informal science learning. For many years the University of Colorado Denver (UCD) has offered programs that take teachers on "science learning journeys" to Africa, South America, through the Pacific, and many U.S. destinations through its Experiential Science Education Research Collaborative (XSci). On these adventures, teachers gain direct, first person experiences of unique and often challenging environments and multidisciplinary science within those settings. Similar professional development opportunities for teachers are widespread as summer programs through organizations nationwide. However, there is currently a lack of in-depth qualitative research investigating the actual benefits and interpretive nature of such programs as personal and professional "extraordinary" science learning experiences for the individuals who participate in them. The research agenda for the XSci Collaborative examines the experiences of educators engaged in informal extraordinary professional development experiences in order to understand the personal processes that make them extraordinary and valuable. Specifically, the primary research approach is to examine the "interpretation" of these experiences by teachers as case studies under the conceptual framework of a phenomenology. This approach utilizes several data sources, including teacher-created digital stories and video documentaries as personal narratives of their extraordinary experience; journals completed throughout the experiences, pre and post experience interviews, classroom observations and student interviews.