What one travel writer learned from visiting every city in Minnesota

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A Midwest travel writer has finished his quest to visit every incorporated city in Minnesota — all 856 of them.

Seth Varner, 25, of Wahoo, Neb., completed his pilgrimage, meticulously documented on his Wandermore Facebook page, in mid-November.

He has learned from his journeys that every town, big or small, has a story and people wanting to tell it.

“Every place has people willing to help you, and they have tons of stories to share,” he said.

Varner drove more than 25,000 miles on his yearlong quest (for context, the circumference of the Earth is approximately 24,901 miles).

His hard drives are laden with more than 115,000 pictures from his travels through the North Star State. He stopped at over 200 local eateries and restaurants, ingesting banquets of walleye and Jucy Lucys, and his favorite meal, the North Vietnamese pho he and his wife, Eliese, found at Norvary in Winona.

Overall, Varner’s dispatches from Minnesota garnered 38.1 million views, according to Facebook analytics Varner shared with the Minnesota Star Tribune.

His follower count ballooned from 9,000 in March to more than 49,000 as people logged in to read about old hometowns and out-of-the-way curiosities.

“Minnesotans really love their state,” Varner said.

Whenever he’d post where he was going next, residents would message him with tips or lore about the history of their town.

“It’s kind of crazy to think that literally thousands upon thousands of people reached out,” Varner said.

Wendorff is proud to show off his hometown of about 2,000 people, about 150 miles southwest of the Twin Cities, he said, and was amazed how people stopped during their busy days to read Varner’s Facebook post about his small town.

Wendorff, director of Wheels Across the Prairie Museum, said he’s already seen people sign in the guest book that they visited because of Varner’s project.

“It brought us new people who were like, ‘Hey, let’s check out this town,’ ” Wendorff said.

Minnesota’s ecological variety surprised Varner, who has written similar books about other states. He hadn’t known how thickly forested Minnesota’s northern half is, and he was struck by the ruggedness of the Iron Range and the beauty of the North Shore.

He said he loved visiting Minnesota’s northernmost point, the Northwest Angle, which required crossing the border into Canada. He said at the border he had to surrender the $3 can of pepper spray he had planned to use against bears.

But Varner pressed onward.

He recalled attending a festival in Pequot Lakes, where street vendors ladled out free bowls of beans as hundreds of people in lawn chairs listened to an Elvis Presley impersonator.

And later that same day, he watched the turtle race in Nisswa.

“A very bizarre thing that I’ve never seen in any other state before, where people are racing hundreds of tiny painted turtles in the middle of their downtown,” Varner said.

Varner is a seasoned travel writer, having gotten his start during the pandemic. He’s completed similar projects, visiting every city in five other states: Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Lori Ryer of Belview has Varner’s Minnesota book, available at Varner’s website. She met with the writer last summer to show off her city of about 400, about two hours west of the Twin Cities, and now her town is in the book.