Overseas placements are promoted in many tertiary institutions as a valuable component of undergraduate programs. Institutional ethnography, as a mode of inquiry that begins in the actual doings of people, was employed in this study to understand preservice teachers' perceptions of their learning from an innovative model of overseas placement. In this paper, we explore an 'epistemology of experience' facilitated by the features of this model; the 'live-in' nature and intensive mentoring provided by university academics. We argue that overseas placements, overly restricted by regulatory authorities, can make a valuable contribution to initial teacher education at the theory-praxis nexus.