Submitted Photo Seth Varner has made it his mission to visit every incorporated town in North Dakota as he has done in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas. The well-traveled college graduate is in the final leg of his journey which will be through the southwestern area of N.D.

Seth Varner, a resident of the cornhusker state of Nebraska, has been satisfying his wanderlust by traveling to and documenting every incorporated community in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas. Having already traveled through more than 2,407 communities, he added Rugby to his list when he visited recently.

After each visit he posts his travels online which includes photos and a blurb about each town. With the help of North Dakota’s Digital Horizons and the University of Nebraska library system, he is able to dive into each town’s history which he then compiles and condenses into a brief article. He focuses on early community history, such as early settlers, businesses, events and etymology. He also features famous individuals from each town and notable tourist sites.

Varner photographs every business, church, school, park and cemetery he can within reason – everything new and old. Afterward he compiles the photos and research into one large book with the hope to encourage individuals to go out and explore their states.

“The primary reason behind my project, besides the book and promoting small-town tourism, is to document Midwest history. In the 302 towns I’ve visited in N.D., I’ve snapped over 31,000 pictures, for an average of over 100 pictures per community. I can’t get every structure in major cities like Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, Williston, etc., so I focus on documenting downtown schools, churches and points of interest,” he said.

In March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Varner was a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Due to pandemic mandates, he was forced to move back in with his parents in Wahoo, Nebraska. The monotony of online classes mixed with the lack of social gatherings fostered a boredom that Varner, along with a friend, decided to dispel. At first, their mission to visit every town in Nebraska wasn’t too serious, but after gaining some popularity, they decided to embrace the attention and started to showcase each town’s hometown pride.

Varner kicks off his planning process for each state by locating a list of the state’s incorporated communities and purchasing a physical map of the state to draw on. He then launches a social media page to get an inside look at each state’s culture and to set up interviews with area locals.

He divided N.D. into five regions and planned to visit each one for eight-nine days before returning back home to Nebraska. Each individual trip takes about two-three weeks of planning in advance.

“I ask for suggestions for things to do and places to see and encourage people to reach out for meetup requests. After letting that post circulate for a week or two, I gather all the suggestions and then make a sunrise-to-sunset itinerary for each day to maximize my time in the region,” he said.

He uses the same routing software as major delivery companies to find the shortest mileage between cities to minimize travel time. To prevent travel catastrophes, he gets bimonthly oil changes on his car and keeps a full spare tire in his trunk. Only once has he had to revamp his entire itinerary due to major storms.

It was raining outside when Varner first pulled into Rugby on June 10, but that didn’t keep him from having fun. He was thrilled to have checked off another “center point of” off his list after having visited the geographical center of the 50 states in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, and the geographical center of the contiguous 48 states in Lebanon, Kansas.

“There’s a lot to see in Rugby for it being a town of 2,500. The courthouse was amongst the most gorgeous in North Dakota and I love that the depot is still in place downtown,” he said.

Depending on each town’s size and the amount of meetup requests he gets ahead of time, a city with a population in the single or double digits with no open businesses might take only 20 minutes to document. Major cities like Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot take longer than a pit stop and require an entire day to explore.

“Having never visited a North Dakota town as of March to now having been to over 85% of its incorporated communities, I’ve been impressed with North Dakota’s rich history, good eats, kind people and people’s pride in their states.

Of the five states I’ve covered – Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota – even the smallest North Dakota towns have exhibited great pride in maintaining their communities … Whether the population is 5, 50, 5,000 or 50,000 people, there’s something to do in every little North Dakota town – you’ve got to go find it,” he said.

Varner is on the last leg of his journey which includes the Enchanted Highway, Dickinson, both units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, Bismarck and the rest of the southwest region.