04/26/2025
What a cool idea!
Suggestions for this leg have been closed as of 4/30/25! Any suggestions posted after this date will not be considered, as I'm already on the road with my itinerary in hand. Thank you to everybody who reached out. Please enjoy the fourth leg of my project! 🚗
I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend with their friends and family! With all the celebrations now in the rearview mirror, it’s time for me to start looking towards stage four of the “Wandermore in Minnesota” project! This time around, I’ll be focusing on Otter Tail, Wilkin, Todd, Wadena, Becker, and Clay counties, in addition to taking care of the three towns I missed on stage three due to car troubles: St. Leo, Porter, and Dawson. This trip will be a tad shorter than my previous ones, but I’ll still be visiting and documenting 65 communities throughout this region in early-to-mid May! The most populous three stops on this leg will be Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes, and my largest city visit yet, Moorhead (the 23rd largest municipality in the state)! 📸
As usual, this post serves as a hub for folks to give suggestions for things to see and do, places to eat, potential cool experiences, or any other tips on what makes these sixty-five towns unique in their own ways. I will do my best to capture the essence of each community by photographing and documenting as many businesses as possible, churches, schools, and points of interest that I can locate in each city. Although I won’t capture a picture of everything in every town, I’ll try to give everyone from now into the future a good idea of what all 856 communities looked like in 2025! If you'd like to try to arrange a meetup with me (whether for lunch at your restaurant, opening up a museum for me, showcasing your business, etc.), you can contact me by messaging the Wandermore in Minnesota page. I can’t promise I’ll be able to meet with everyone who asks as I get many hundreds of requests, but I’ll try my best to accommodate! 🙂 I appreciate everyone who reaches out to help me out or offers to meet up. I typically prioritize meeting with city officials, tourism people, museum personnel, or business owners. Please share this post in your community boards and with town officials to help spread the word of my forthcoming visits to your area! I can’t wait to explore some more of western Minnesota!
NOTE: If your town is not listed amongst the 65 communities listed below, I'm either A) visiting it on a future trip later this year, 😎 I’ve already been there, or (C) it's unincorporated! You can see a full list of Minnesota’s 856 incorporated municipalities that I'll be covering at https://wandermorepublishing.com/minnesotacities. 😄🗺️
1. Aldrich (Wadena, 35)
2. Audubon (Becker, 560)
3. Barnesville (Clay, 2,759)
4. Battle Lake (Otter Tail, 857)
5. Bertha (Todd, 560)
6. Bluffton (Otter Tail, 210)
7. Breckenridge (Wilkin County Seat, 3,430)
8. Browerville (Todd, 839)
9. Burtrum (Todd, 123)
10. Callaway (Becker, 178)
11. Campbell (Wilkin, 164)
12. Clarissa (Todd, 661)
13. Clitherall (Otter Tail, 62)
14. Comstock (Clay, 100)
15. Dalton (Otter Tail, 215)
16. Dawson (Lac qui Parle, 1,466)
17. Deer Creek (Otter Tail, 330)
18. Dent (Otter Tail, 173)
19. Detroit Lakes (Becker County Seat, 9,869)
20. Dilworth (Clay, 4,612)
21. Doran (Wilkin, 36)
22. Eagle Bend (Todd, 546)
23. Elizabeth (Otter Tail, 168)
24. Erhard (Otter Tail, 132)
25. Felton (Clay, 177)
26. Fergus Falls (Otter Tail County Seat, 14,119)
27. Foxhome (Wilkin, 126)
28. Frazee (Becker, 1,335)
29. Georgetown (Clay, 86)
30. Glyndon (Clay, 1,306)
31. Grey Eagle (Todd, 330)
32. Hawley (Clay, 2,219)
33. Henning (Otter Tail, 854)
34. Hewitt (Todd, 251)
35. Hitterdal (Clay, 199)
36. Kent (Wilkin, 65)
37. Lake Park (Becker, 728)
38. Long Prairie (Todd County Seat, 3,661)
39. Menahga (Wadena, 1,340)
40. Moorhead (Clay County Seat, 44,505)
41. Nashua (Wilkin, 67)
42. New York Mills (Otter Tail, 1,294)
43. Ni**od (Wadena, 84)
44. Ogema (Becker, 208)
45. Ottertail (Otter Tail, 629)
46. Parkers Prairie (Otter Tail, 1,020)
47. Pelican Rapids (Otter Tail, 2,577)
48. Perham (Otter Tail, 3,512)
49. Porter (Yellow Medicine & Lincoln, 166)
50. Richville (Otter Tail, 77)
51. Rothsay (Wilkin & Otter Tail, 498)
52. Sabin (Clay, 619)
53. Sebeka (Wadena, 741)
54. St. Leo (Yellow Medicine, 93)
55. Staples (Wadena & Todd, 2,989)
56. Ulen (Clay, 476)
57. Underwood (Otter Tail, 356)
58. Urbank (Otter Tail, 52)
59. Vergas (Otter Tail, 348)
60. Verndale (Wadena, 511)
61. Vining (Otter Tail, 62)
62. Wadena (Wadena County Seat & Otter Tail, 4,325)
63. West Union (Todd, 92)
64. Wolf Lake (Becker, 71)
65. Wolverton (Wilkin, 128)
For those new to my project: My name is Seth Varner, and I’m a 25-year-old recent college graduate who’s on a mission to visit every single one of Minnesota's incorporated communities throughout 2025. In 2020, I had the idea to visit every incorporated town in my home state of Nebraska. Since then, I have turned my passion for small-town history, writing, and travel into a full-time business, Wandermore Publishing. I've since traveled to every single municipality in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, and North Dakota--over 2,900 towns! I've been fortunate to share my travels with millions of folks across the region as I've worked to document Midwest history, promote tourism, and celebrate small-town America. I have a passion for showcasing the fact that every town–no matter how big or small–has history that needs to be preserved for future generations and something fun and interesting for visitors to enjoy!
Be sure to give my page a “like” or a follow if you’d like to travel vicariously with me to every municipality in the Land of 10,000 Lakes! Once I finish traveling Minnesota, I will compile a book, “Wandermore in Minnesota,” which will be a travel guide, history book, and living photo album under one cover! It will be the most comprehensive guide to Minnesota's incorporated towns ever produced. More information on the book will be available this Fall, but you can sign up at wandermorepublishing.com/minnesota to get an email reminder when it’s officially published. 📚
