Today we’d like to introduce you to Seth Varner.
Hi Seth, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
The Wandermore Visit531Nebraska, Visit939Iowa, and Visit310SouthDakota projects were carried out in the summers of 2020, 2021, and 2022 (respectively).
The original project, Visit531Nebraska, came to fruition as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. After getting sent home from school in March of 2020, I, Seth Varner, decided that I wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine: to visit all 531 incorporated communities in the state of Nebraska. The idea came about as a result of a series of trips I had taken to small Nebraska towns with my father during elementary school, and a deep passion to travel that was instilled by my mother. Rather than staying at home playing video games or picking up extra hours at the local Dairy Queen, I wanted to make a something-out-of-nothing summer and travel the state with my good friend, Austin. On the evening of April 22, 2020, I told him that I had a dream of visiting all 531 of Nebraska’s incorporated communities… and off we off went!
Over the course of about two and a half months, Austin and I embarked on a nearly 9,000-mile journey across Nebraska that led us to every nook and cranny of the state. We met hundreds of people along the way and visited many restaurants, businesses, state attractions, and more. Traveling across the state was truly an eye-opening experience. Whether we were in the small town of Monowi (population 1), or the bustling city of Omaha, we discovered that there was always something to see and do! Even in a town of 1, we were able to find loads of things to do. We ate at the bar, scoped out the book collection at Rudy’s Library, talked with the sole resident about some of her life stories, and explored the old church…despite us having every reason to suspect that there was “nothing” to do there, we found more than plenty to keep us occupied! As a result of our discoveries in Monowi and the hundreds of other towns across Nebraska, “There’s something to do in every town, you just gotta go out and find it!” has become a resounding motto in conversations with people from across the Midwest.
Local bars offered us free food in exchange for a little exposure on our Facebook site. Others gifted us free hotel rooms and gas or treated us to their favorite ice cream or gave us souvenirs. No matter where we traveled, we found that there was more than enough in every town to keep us occupied, even if we didn’t have the time or the resources to enjoy it all ourselves. It was incredible to see the outpouring of support that we received from people coming from all walks of life. Throughout the two-and-a-half months, we documented everything on our Facebook page, @Visit531Nebraska, which is now followed by over 30,000 individuals as of January 2023.
Following our trip around the state, my followers encouraged me to write a book about our adventures.
From September to November 2020, I worked day and night to put together a book that highlighted every community and went into detail about what we saw, heard, and tasted throughout our two-and-a-half-month escapade. I now dub the book “the most comprehensive guide to Nebraska’s 531 incorporated towns,” because of its distinction as being a travel guide, a history book, a travel log, and a living photo album all in one (thanks to our unique “QR Code Photo Album”) feature. This book, a complete afterthought following our adventure (I never imagined I would be writing a book about our travels until nearly a month after they had been completed), can now be found for sale all across the Cornhusker state in museums, businesses, and other attractions. As of May of 2022, it has been updated to more of a “travel guide” status as it now includes Restaurant Recommendations, information on different festivals around the state, and a mention of every museum, state recreation area, state historical park, and state park in Nebraska. The most recent edition introduced in December of 2022 also includes information on breweries, wineries, distilleries, golf courses, former state governors, state symbols, and more! Future renditions of my books, such as the South Dakota edition released in September of 2022, will focus more on being a travel guide than a travel log.
Today, I am still continuously exploring our state and sharing my findings with the Visit531Nebraska blog on Facebook. What started as a project meant to cure boredom has now resulted in me giving restaurant reviews, student tourism talks, exploring ghost towns, and updating the photo album QR codes in the book. My friends still join me from time to time on these adventures!
Fast forward to March of 2021, and Austin and I decided to embark on a second adventure in our neighboring state across Mighty Mo’. We dubbed this project, “Visit939Iowa,” a testament to Iowa’s 939 incorporated communities. Already having the Nebraska trips under our belts made this trip slightly different, especially now that we knew that there was going to be a book created. Over a time frame of nearly six months (March 30 to September 19), Austin and I were overwhelmed with a similar amount of media exposure and hospitality from Iowans as we had received from Nebraskans. The @Visit939Iowa Facebook blog currently sits at over 35,000 followers as of January 2023, and the book was released in November 2021. Plans are in the works to return to restaurants, towns, and other attractions in Iowa over time. From February to August of 2022, I embarked on my third journey and traveled to all 310 incorporated communities in South Dakota with my other good friend, Jack McGonigal. The Visit310SouthDakota page boasts over 11,000 followers as of January 2023. In the spring of 2023, I [Seth] will begin the process of documenting all 627 towns in Kansas.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The entire Wandermore project has been a learning experience. My adventure, intended initially to cure boredom, has now evolved into my full-time career. When I was just beginning my travels around Nebraska, there was no Facebook page. I took a “selfie” with Austin and my friends with something around the town that had the town name on it (such as a welcome sign, a post office, a bank, etc.), but that was all. I didn’t think to capture photos of the businesses, churches, parks, or anything else around the towns. After I had finished about 20% of the state, my mother suggested that I start a Facebook page documenting my travels. Following the creation of that page, the journey went viral, and we gained several thousand followers every week until the conclusion of the journey. As we continued traveling, I began to snap a few additional photographs, but I still focused more on enjoying the towns than trying to document them. When the suggestions to write a book came around, I finally had the realization that I should have had a documentation mindset all along. I should have been snapping photos of everything I possibly could have for future generations to enjoy!
When I decided to travel around Iowa, things were different because I had the intention in my mind to write a book. I focused on photographing tourism-related attractions such as restaurants, museums veteran memorials, churches, and quirky sites. As I posted the town spotlights, I realized that people were not satisfied with only the tourism-related photographs. They wanted to see everything that was still around town – the parks, the swimming pools, and even old, empty historic buildings. I went from averaging about 10-15 photographs per town to upwards of 50 per town by the time the Iowa project was all said and done! I went into South Dakota with this “documentation” mindset, and I made the effort to capture anything and everything that I thought would be of interest to my Facebook followers. There were some towns in South Dakota where I would capture over 100 photographs, and then have to pick and choose what photos to share due to Facebook post limits (100 photos per post)!
Another major struggle was trying to balance traveling to every incorporated community in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota while still managing part-time and full-time jobs and being a full-time college student. Throughout the Iowa trips, I was a Resident Assistant at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and I had to balance my time between helping students, planning and conducting road trips, handling resident concerns, doing school and homework, managing the Facebook pages, writing a book, and maintaining healthy social relationships. A lot of people on Facebook weren’t aware of the fact that I was juggling so many things at once! Following my South Dakota trip, I actually had to leave my job as a Resident Director (essentially the manager of all the Resident Assistants on campus), because I simply didn’t have the time to grow my Wandermore Publishing company and fulfill the duties of the role at the same time. I have still managed to maintain high enough grades to land myself on the Dean’s or Chancellor’s List (or both) every semester since I have begun the Wandermore project.
Here’s a timeline of my jobs/school/trips for clarification:
Freshman in College: August 2019 to May 2020
Visit531Nebraska Trip: April 2020 to July 2020
Begin Sophomore year of College: August 2020
Visit531Nebraska Book Released: November 2020
Visit939Iowa Trip Begins: March 2021
End Sophomore year of College: May 2021
Begin job as Resident Assistant: May 2021
Begin Junior year of College: August 2021
Visit939Iowa Trip Ends: September 2021
Visit939Iowa Book Released: November 2021
Visit310SouthDakota Trip Begins: February 2022
End Junior of College: May 2022
Promoted to Resident Director from Resident Assistant: May 2022Visit310SouthDakota Trip Ends: July 2022
Left job as Resident Director: August 2022
Begin Senior year of College: August 2022
Visit310SouthDakota Book Released: August 2022
Wandermore Publishing becomes a full-time job: August 2022
Present <- January 2023
The Kansas trip will begin in March of 2023
Will graduate in May of 2023
Kansas book will be available in the Fall of 2023
Other assorted struggles included aligning work and travel schedules with Austin (my companion to all of Nebraska and Iowa’s towns) and Jack (my companion to all of South Dakota’s towns), car issues, and intense weather situations.
–Regarding the work and travel schedules, we did NOT travel continuously. We would go on a trip to Nebraska, Iowa, or South Dakota for 3-8 days, and then return home to Nebraska for school/work purposes. A week or two later, we’d go out on the road again and visit more towns!
The most notable car issue was outside of Fort Dodge, Iowa, when our tire went flat and we thought the struts on my car had gone out. Thankfully, we were able to limp into an auto repair shop and get everything fixed to finish out Iowa.
Even if there were severe thunderstorms, we would still travel from town to town to stay on schedule! There were times that we would snap photographs in the towns in the pouring rain, and still step outside to take a selfie with the welcome sign. It was a common occurrence to be rained on for the entire day but still manage to capture thousands of photos from several communities. In Anamosa, Iowa, we came within five miles of a tornado and had to alter our schedule to avoid it. Another time in Parkersburg, South Dakota, the rain and hail were so intense that we visited a Facebook follower’s home for an hour to wait out the storm!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Wandermore Publishing?
Wandermore Publishing LLC is a small book publishing company founded by Seth Varner. I compose travel guides and post content on my network of Facebook pages (75,000+ combined followers) to encourage individuals to go out and explore their home states. I work to document town history through his writings and photographs, learn more about local communities, and encourage the expansion of small-town tourism. The books are a travel guide, a history book, and a living photo album all under one cover. I am likely the only individual in the world to have visited every incorporated community in three different states, and one of only a handful of individuals to have visited every incorporated town in Nebraska, Iowa, or South Dakota. Wandermore travel guides are unlike any other guides because they include photos and information on all communities, whether they have a population of five individuals and one building left standing, or if they’re a major urban population center! While each guide is slightly different as of January of 2023 because of the evolution of the book’s content, Wandermore guides have information on each town’s history, famous individuals, population statistics, unusual sites, museums, National Register of Historic Places sites, state parks, recreation areas, golf courses, breweries, wineries, distilleries, restaurants, festivals and celebrations, ghost towns and unincorporated communities, campsites, quirky lodging options, Scenic Byways, fairgrounds, and more. Hundreds of colored photos are included in print, but a unique QR code feature allows individuals to access a collection of tens of thousands of photos from across the state.
Since 10,000+ photos can’t reasonably be printed into a book, the QR codes were developed as a way for readers to enjoy all the photos from each community. What’s neater is the fact that the QR codes can be updated as Seth returns to communities. A QR code in the Nebraska travel guide today may only contain five photos, but if I return to a town to say, visit a museum and eat at a restaurant, I can upload dozens of new photos to the online album and anyone who owns a copy of the book would be able to see them instantly. Wandermore guides are truly one of a kind. I want readers to know that “Nobody knows more than Wandermore” because of the hard work I put into physically visiting each community to learn what makes it so special. It takes thousands of hours and dollars to develop a travel guide, and I’m so proud of what my company has done to spark memories and create conversations and connections across Facebook. Based on my Facebook analytics, my pages have reached over six million different people since the start of the first Wandermore project in 2020. My travel guides can be purchased online at WandermorePublishing.com/shop.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
The book industry as a whole has gone largely digital over the past decade or so, but you’ll find that the older generations largely prefer holding a physical copy of a book as opposed to scrolling through one on their mobile devices. A defining feature of a Wandermore travel guide is that it can be used as an informative companion to help plan a trip and fill in individuals on the best places to eat, relax, explore, etc. Wandermore guides are currently only available in print, but if physical copies go out of style, e-book editions will likely be introduced.
The travel guide industry is fascinating as there are simply not that many options available. While each state publishes its own updated travel guide each year (in a magazine-style format), it doesn’t contain information on every community, and typically there is little to no historical information or mention of non-mainstream attractions. When I say non-mainstream, I think of things such as the (Un)happy Chef Umpire in Ryan, Iowa, the two towns with populations of 1 and 2 in Monowi and Gross, Nebraska, or a sculpture of a cowboy riding a fish in Mobridge, South Dakota. Things that wouldn’t be mentioned in a state-issued travel guide.
The social media industry is always changing. Facebook is the primary platform I utilize now to share my Wandermore adventures and advertise my travel guides, but who knows if it’ll even be around ten years from now? With the rise of short-form video content platforms such as TikTok, my content will have to evolve with platforms as they come and go.
Pricing:
- Wandermore in Iowa Travel Guide – $31.99
- Visit531Nebraska Travel Guide – $29.99
- Visit310SouthDakota Travel Guide – $24.99
- Wandermore Apparel – Varies
- Following the Wandermore Facebook pages – Free of Charge
Contact Info:
- Website: wandermorepublishing.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/visit531nebraska, facebook.com/visit939iowa, facebook.com/visit310southdakota, facebook.com/visit627kansas
Image Credits
Wandermore Publishing
