OUR COMMUNITY

E

xplorer Scott Krasnick has taken 
more than 38,000 photos of towns 
across Michigan.
While living in Downtown Detroit, 
Krasnick, 50, decided to see where Van 
Dyke Road ended. “I didn’t look at a 
map,” the Hillel Day School employee 
says. “I just drove it.”
Throughout the drive, Krasnick saw 
what he calls “tons of wonderful towns.” 
Since he lived in a Detroit home at the 
time that was built in 1877, he was fasci-
nated by old buildings and architecture.
Krasnick, who now lives in Roseville, 
decided right there and then that 
he wanted to explore every town in 
Michigan. He strived to find more 
charming places and hidden gems like 
he was seeing on his drive up Van Dyke 
Road.
The journey began in 2014. Today, 
Krasnick estimates that he’s seen 100% of 
all towns in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula 

and 75% of all towns in Michigan’s Upper 
Peninsula. In the summer and good 
weather, he spends nearly every weekend 
making road trips across the state.
Since driving is his preferred method 
of traveling, Krasnick, who doubles as 
an amateur photographer, says being on 
the road helps him discover surprising 
places he might not see traveling by other 
means, like train or plane. He especially 
likes to drive down back roads.
“I’ve been everywhere on the official 
state map that they give out at rest stops,” 
Krasnick says. “I’ve been to every city, 
and then some that aren’t on the map, like 
ghost towns in the Lower Peninsula.”
At each location, Krasnick takes hun-
dreds of photographs. His goal: to pre-
serve what towns look like in their cur-
rent states, particularly towns that have 
remained unchanged for decades or in 
some cases, centuries.
“You see postcards of different old 

Michigan man has taken 38,000 photos of nearly every town in the state.

Exploring 
Close to Home

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER | PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT KRASNICK

26 | SEPTEMBER 23 • 2021 

A windmill in Bridgeville

A view of the Porcupine Mountains 
in the Upper Peninsula.

