Friends trek across Iowa one community at a time

Shelby County was the goal last Friday

    COUNTY -- Seth Varner and Austin Schneider are loving every minute of their new adventure of criss-crossing Iowa one town at a time. They visit museums and local attractions as well as dine at the locals’ favorite restaurants. And they get to meet a lot of nice people.
    Their goal is to visit all 939 incorporated Iowa towns by the end of August. Hence their Facebook page is named Visit939Iowa.
    Friday morning’s stop in Harlan was the 25th Iowa town the University of Nebraska at Omaha sophomores have visited since they began their Iowa tour a week ago. Council Bluffs was the first Iowa town they visited when they started this adventure on April 2.
    On their way to Harlan, they had stopped in Tennant. Their first stop in Harlan was for a photo opportunity in front of the high school. In every town they visit, they take a photo of a sign featuring the town name.
    They had plans to see the Shelby County Courthouse and whatever else they could find. After leaving Harlan, they were headed to Westphalia and more Shelby County towns, and then north to see what Crawford County had to offer.
Logged 11,000 miles
seeing every NE town
    How did these the two Wahoo, NE full-time students get the idea to journey to Iowa towns on days they aren’t taking college classes?
    From visiting all 531 incorporated towns in Nebraska in 2 1/2 months in 2020 of course. They logged approximately 11,000 vehicle miles seeing Nebraska.
    “This has been a dream of mine since I was 10 years old. So I asked Austin if he wanted to go along,” said Varner.
    Varner and Schneider have known each other since kindergarten and became good friends while they were co-workers at the Dairy Queen in high school.
    When the pandemic hit last year, they decided it was a great time to see all the towns in Nebraska. Varner had the idea for the adventure years ago.
    “We have friends that come along occasionally,” said Schneider.
    But Varner added they are the only two that visited all 531 Nebraska towns. Their longest stay in a town was five hours while their shortest stay was five minutes. Varner plans out what towns they will be visiting each day ahead of time but they don’t have any set schedule in each town as lots of their trips are people planned.
Help from locals on area attractions
    “Two days in advance of every trip we put on our Facebook page exactly what towns we are going to. Then people say go here or go here. Its like the people plan the trips for us. There are some things we will throw in...if we just know something is there we will just stop in,” said Varner.
    Schneider and Varner do not have college classes on Wednesdays and Fridays so their trips are made on those days as well as on weekends. Both also have jobs.
    Their day trips into Iowa begin and end in Omaha each day. The farther their trips get into Iowa, they will eventually stay overnight in towns. And when summer hits and they are done with college classes they will have more time each week to travel.
    When they finish visiting all 939 towns, they plan to compile a book complete with photos highlighting their Iowa travels. The books will be for sale much like their 441 page book they made featuring the 531 Nebraska towns. The Nebraska book also contains fun facts about each town they visited as well as a QR code featuring all the photos they took in each town.
    When asked if they had been invited to people’s homes for a meal or stay during their Iowa journey, they said not yet.
    Schneider said people have invited them to local restaurants and bought their lunch or dinner. Varner mentioned that hasn’t happened in Iowa yet, but it did happen a lot in Nebraska. They recently set up a GoFundMe page to help with travel expenses.  

 
 

 

Harlan Newspapers

1114 7th Street
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Harlan, IA 51537-0721

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