Metaphorically, going places without a map was a significant shift for me. Experiencing a sense of disconnection both professionally and personally became a catalyst to undertake a journey of re-connection. This coincided with an experience of displacement and what transpired was the making of new meanings around being an educator and around outdoor education. This paper is the beginning phase in articulating a new story. The self (in roles of researcher and educator) is situated in the story, which can be a vulnerable and risky place to be since this form of narrative is on the margins of contemporary outdoor education practice and research. The telling of this story serves to give presence to an alternative representation of experience and narrative. It draws on qualitative research methods from the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions. This paper is an autoethnographic account, which aims to narrate the tensions, complexities and contradictions around the spaces of experience that are not so visible. Making meaning is demonstrated through the incorporation of poetic representation of experience in an attempt to capture the inter-subjective nature of these spaces. Writing as research is at the forefront and is a process of 're-stor(y)ing' (Pinn, 2003) that is about re-discovery, re-creating and re-visioning. Self-awareness occurs simultaneously in the writing process which I contend is a valuable and ethical way of engaging as a reflective practitioner. This paper will conclude by considering some implications with regard to the pedagogy of being an educator in the outdoors.