The scaling limit of large simple outerplanar maps was established by Caraceni using a bijection due to Bonichon, Gavoille and Hanusse. The present paper introduces a new bijection between outerplanar maps and trees decorated with ordered sequences of edge-rooted dissections of polygons. We apply this decomposition in order to provide a new, short proof of the scaling limit that also applies to the general setting of first-passage percolation. We obtain sharp tail-bounds for the diameter and recover the asymptotic enumeration formula for outerplanar maps. Our methods also enable us treat subclasses such as bipartite outerplanar maps.