In 2008, I moved to the Republic of Ireland for 8 months to examine the independent learning of international students while they were simultaneously students and tourists. I was jointly supervised by a sociologist of education and an anthropologist of tourism, and throughout my doctoral project, I was pushed to account for my methodological choices. Previous studies of international student mobility have focused on touristic behaviour, professional attainment and psychological outcomes post-travel. My study examined student experiences in progress, during their period of educational mobility, in order to access ongoing and independent learning. This case study examines the challenges anthropologists face in terms of developing a research programme and the importance of communicating your research findings to multidisciplinary audiences. Through combining multiple forms of data collection using a variety of ethnographic methods, I was able to examine the everyday experiences of the students and ask them how these experiences might have impacted them. I looked at the relationship between methods and how they can be combined to create an ethnographic project. I outline how I designed my doctoral research project, the challenges and issues related to the project and the implications these lessons have for future ethnographic projects. [This content is provided in the format of an e-book.]