The phenomenology of turbulent relative dispersion is revisited. A heuristic scenario is proposed, in which pairs of tracers undergo a succession of independent ballistic separations during time intervals whose lengths fluctuate. This approach suggests that the logarithm of the distance between tracers self-averages and performs a continuous-time random walk. This leads to specific predictions for the probability distribution of separations, which differ from those obtained using scale-dependent eddy-diffusivity models (e.g. in the framework of Richardson’s approach). These predictions are tested against high-resolution simulations and shed new light on the explosive separation between tracers.