This paper examines the relationship of the fieldworker, self‐proclaimed venerate ‘insider/outsider’, to their shifting role as researcher and traveller on the life course. Ethnographic fieldwork is a transitory research method, reliant on a gaze shifting from the breadth of the field site to the depth of individual human experience. The researcher is the conduit and the instrument of data collection but has not been adequately understood as a transforming agent in the process. Reflexivity is required to understand how the researcher's experiences and shifting position on the life course converge with fieldwork processes and data. Inspired by a phenomenological life course perspective I use data from fieldwork in Russia, Mexico and southern Europe to throw light on the emergent effects of life course shifts on the fieldworker's positionality and interpretation of research experiences and field notes. Researcher and textual reflexivity can result in a more vibrant recognition of the messiness of the human fieldwork experience and the resulting epistemological potential.