Don George recently told me that he’s begnning to assemble Lonely Planet’s latest collection of travel stories, Tales from Nowhere. If you have a travel story that might fit the bill, check out the submission requirements below and send it in!

We’ve all been to Nowhere. It might have been in the middle of Borneo or Bolivia, or in the back of a bus in Beijing or Boston. It might have been a Zen retreat, a no-man’s-land border outpost, or a six-palm Pacific island in an endless sea. You may have found Nowhere on a sultry summer night in Paris when you’d spent your last franc and had no place to sleep, or on a midnight jeep safari in the African bush after you’d blown your last spare tire, with your campsite a distant pinprick of light, or in the comforting cocoon of an all-night train compartment, in the arms of an intimate stranger. Nowhere is a setting, a situation and a state of mind. It’s not on any map, but you know it when you’re there.

Following in the grand tradition of The Kindness of Strangers and By the Seat of My Pants, Lonely Planet’s 2006 anthology, Tales from Nowhere, will present a rich, multi-faceted portrait of the many Nowheres we visit in our lives. The collection will comprise 30 true travelers’ tales, full of passion, surprise, wonder, curiosity and revelation. Through stories widely varied in setting and situation, Tales will celebrate and illuminate the fundamental truth that travel sometimes takes us places we never planned to go – and that those unexpected journeys can enrich and enlighten us in ways we never otherwise would have discovered.

Have you been to Nowhere? What did it look like and feel like? How did you get there? What did you do there? What did Nowhere teach you?

Lonely Planet is looking for original, unpublished tales of from 1,000 to 3,000 words. These can be about a Nowhere you wanted to be in, a Nowhere you accidentally found yourself in, or a Nowhere you desperately didn’t want to be. We are looking for a wide range of stories — funny, adventurous, romantic, philosophical; the subject, setting and tone are completely open.

Please email submissions to Tales from Nowhere editor Don George at don.george@lonelyplanet.com, or mail them to Don George, Global Travel Editor, Lonely Planet Publications, 150 Linden St., Oakland CA 94607 USA. The deadline for submissions is Jan. 15.