With each trip we take we’re building our personal story library. And if anything beats a good travel story, it’s total disaster travel story. The kind where things went so spectacularly awry that it seems as if there is no way it could have actually happened–only it did.

The Accidental Extremist is a place to share this specific type of story: Stories about things working out the exact opposite way you would have planned, but entirely awesome and hilarious nonetheless. From a tale of chafed nipples during a runner’s first marathon to the story of a young reporter living in a van for several weeks while covering March Madness, The Accidental Extremist is loaded with wonderfully bad tales of travel gone wrong.

“Think of it as the online home for thoughtful stories about the wheels coming off and what happened next,” explains site creator Christian DeBenedetti, a well-traveled journalist and former editor of National Geographic Adventure and Men’s Journal. “Cultural gaffes. Misadventures. Cautionary Tales. So: Submit them, especially if they’re funny.”

Tags: Call for Submissions, Christian DeBenedett, the accidental extremist, travel stories