The craze for scavenger hunt exists for this long time as the game provides a platform the players to showcase their veritable Sherlock’s deduction ability and comparable Indiana Jones’s thirst for an unending quest. And boy oh boy, ain’t that fun and engaging?
Jesus-yes-Christ!!!
The game is flexible and accommodating in a sense that it can be played around in any settings, from mall to public parks, from road trip to around-the-town quest. This has added adaptability to the game. Rules can be used as they are or change them to suit your need.
After playing this game a few times, it’s natural to run short on ideas, that’s why we have attempted to compile 30 coolest Scavenger Hunt ideas you can try on your next outing.
Scavenger Hunt ideas for Adults
Video based scavenger hunt
It is an adult-themed variation due to inclusion of a bit expensive gadget, a videographer camera. The exclusion of kid from this variation is chiefly due to the obvious fact that the gadget may drop to be rendered useless or be manhandled by the kids.
Even smart phones camera will be fine. The catch here is form equal numbers of group and have them such camera. Each group is then assigned a ‘supervisor’ who will observe each participating group performance. Each group has to do a list of consented tasks. The group should film the task and meet after certain time. The group with maximum number of approved successes wins the game.
Romance based scavenger hunt
This variation is meant to add a bit of romantic play to your otherwise minutely lukewarm love life. You can set a list of clues which should be decoded at firsthand in order to reach the weekend rendezvous.
Clues could be the initial of my nee combined with the date of my birthday will take you to the only direction to look for.
Such an exercise taxes the forgotten memories and pressurizes the latent, tacit part of memory. It will be an added advantage if each of the set clues is concluded with a love quote.
Word of caution!!! You are having umpteenth degree of freedom to puzzle the partner and better will be to use each judiciously. Extended and overuse of singular concept may eventually dry away the beneficial drive.
Purse based scavenger hunt
The varied form is based on finding every item from your purse. Since ladies carry voluminous purses jammed with varieties of items, the game play is biased to ladies side.
Each participating ladies should form a group and send their assorted list from their individual purses to the organizing committee. The committee takes and hides them. And then return with list of clues to find the hidden items. Each team then should find the item after breaking down those clues.
The team that finds their item correctly and in maximum number win the game.
Corporate team based event
The event is primarily disposed to increase the growth of camaraderie in every segment of corporate house. It allows some free time to the employees, and share and attune to general interest, motive and strength.
Community services through CSR, picnic, walkathon, outdoor and indoor competition are examples of corporate based events.
Newspaper based scavenger hunt
This is educational based variation. The main aim of the hunt is increase the general awareness about the world. The task here are simple, each participant should unravel a piece of information from statement based on the freshest newspaper.
The clue could be present the summary of Taurus or rewrite the today’s headline or what’s the price of orange flavored Minute Maid drinks. The number of questions and level of complexity should arise according to the number of the participating group.
Sound surrounding scavenger hunt
The aim of the hunt to ask the participant to respond to some consented method upon playing of a certain type of tune. The crunch here is that the tune is played in relatively noisy environment. Also each tune has important information to be decoded.
know-thy-neighbor-well scavenger hunt
The purpose of the variation is to start or to maintain a level of intimacy with new or old neighbor. The catch here is to collect a list of agreed items from agreed colonies. The participating teams should clearly notify the real possessor that the asked item won’t be returned. The team with highest number of item will win the game.
This variation strengthens the personal bonds with neighbor.
Heyday scavenger hunt
Rather than being an actual hunt, this is based on retentive ability to an important day in the intimate friendship life. Also it may work to abridge the lost touches with some off stream, forgotten friends. The goal is to write an important aspect from a certain past event in each specified timelines and disclose them after certain intervals. The participant with maximum number of correct, proven events wins the game.
Birthday surprise scavenger hunt
This one works miracle to the man-child who is there in your group. In the first step, a stranger is introduced to him some day prior to special day. On the very day, all the concerned dears and nears are made to intentionally ignore him. The new stranger is then made to play with him the conventional scavenger hunt. The final revelation of the hunt would be the surprise birthday party.
Bachelorette scavenger hunt
It is a varied form to include a bit of sweet treachery, frolicsome behavior with a dab of raunchiness before the actual marriage. It’s a sort of I-dare-you with lots of challenging moments like kissing a bald guy to going commando in public
Scavenger Hunt Ideas for Kids
Glow in the shade scavenger hunt
This variable form of scavenger hunt combines child’s exploratory intuition with excitement from the conventional hide-and-search game play. The form has a simple, extra additive- toys smeared in light-glowing paint.
The catch of finding such toys in lightless, dull room after breaking down a set of coded information catalyze the growth of fearlessness and intelligence faculty in your child.
Nature based scavenger hunt
This form is an obvious choice to engage your child with his friends only when you have great outdoors with plenty of trees and wide open space.
The only thing to take care is to ensure the environment is safe for your child in every way. Boulders, rock-chips and vile insects could severely hurt your child well-being.
Scavenger hunt in the Mr. Jack Frost palace
The form is suitable under mildly snowy or snowing condition. The point of the game is to engage the participating kids in searching sets of ice cubes. The game-play can be amped up by coloring the cubes and varying the looks.
The parents should make sure the participating children are properly dressed in necessary woolen clothes.
Recyclable scavenger hunt
The game-play of this variation allows the participation from the child who knows the concept of recyclable material-the waste material that can be reused by converting them into other useful material.
The organizing parents find and arrange a location where recyclable materials exist like grains field, golf course etc. Then each participant are handed bags to collect the recyclable material. The team that collects most recyclable items within the designated time wins the game.
Animal based scavenger hunt
The ideal setting for this variation is the place where animals of all kinds exist or has a likelihood of existence like zoo or park.
The catch here is to ask your kids to count the number of particular animals or its breed. Even animal tracks, shells, bird’s feathers or skin can be included.
Grocery grab scavenger hunt
The idea of this variation to divide your grocery list to your kids and see which one comes back with the correct items first. This will shorten your shopping time while, in parallel, it also increases cognizant ability in the child.
As a parent, you must ensure to divide the workload according to the child’s ability and there should be a provision of gifts to the winning child.
Household chore based scavenger hunt
The variation works beneficially when you have big, daunting chores in the house, and you have none helping hands. The idea here is to break such chores into small manageable entities and ask your children and their friends to take up some individually and compete against others in the race of time. For example, you may ask them to sort messy piles of dishes according to size.
An inclusion of reward to the fast performer will facilitate honest and wholehearted participation.
Education based scavenger hunt
The suitable places to play this variation are public library, historical monuments, or museum. As a parent, you need to come up with a list of things that they should do or find during the visit. You will see evidential growth of excitement in your child’s eyes as his knowledge base augments after each tasks. Additionally, the child’s retentive ability also improves.
Reverse-photo based scavenger hunt
This variation is based on the use of pictures instead of conventional words in the searching list. The game-play strengthens the cognizant and matching ability, along with the capacity to checklist the simple form of to-do list. The competitiveness gradient can be upped by taking blurred shots, angled shots, too-close or to-far shots or even partial shots.
It is a yes that the game can be adjusted, by including adult-themed motives, to attract the more aged participation.
Road-trip based scavenger hunt
This is a fun way to waste your kid’s petulance and tantrum while in a road trip. The constantly changing scenery itself is a big, reliable setting to play the game. You may ask the kid to count all the pizzerias, or red cars or stop signs along the trip.
Festive Scavenger Hunt Ideas
Christmas gift scavenger hunt
It is age old tradition to exchange gift to the nearer and dearer during the festive Christmas season.
With this change, the gifting session is given a twist. The gift-giver concocts a series of riddles which should be solved to reach at the place where the giver has put the gift to collect. The giver should be aware to equate the level of complexity with the comprehensive ability of the participant.
The prime location to place the gift could be trees, shade, and garage or even the starting point. The giver should have a rough tally of time taken to search the gift and sync it with the gift opening session of other family member. Also, it is advisable to play the game with handful members. Preparing clues and conducting it for everyone is a bit time consuming, and it might dry up the fun and the mirth.
Halloween themed hunt
A certain appealing theme like mummies or vampires should be laced while playing this variation of the game. Each team are then given a “scary” name just to turn the mood up. Typical scary names could be “The Gigantic Ghouls”, “The Nutjob Nurses”, and “The Bloody Babes”. You can come up with your own names.
The conventional decoding-searching methods is twisted a bit with inclusion of dark alleys, and dusky ambience which should be frequented to search-find the items.
The organizer should award the winner with cool grand prize while for the participating an item of gag gift will do. This way everyone shall win something at the end.
Scavenger ideas for Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is not only a perfect festival to bring your family together and dine a sumptuous meal, but also a good time to have family fun. The uniquely themed scavenger hunt will ask your family to search for that riddle bag containing a special task. Solving the task will lead them to another location where another riddle await. Fun, right? Using these ideas, you will be able to make kiddos busy or the scavenger hunt can be timed after the dinner so that you can engage in to burn up those calories.
Scavenger ideas for Valentine’s day
An idea of scavenger hunt targeted for the Valentine day is itself mouth-watering for the hunt shall be an element of surprise leading to rekindle the fire between you and your love.
Your imagination will be the wingman to successfully conclude the hunt into a night of endless possibilities. A romantic table with clues or an email with riddle or delivery of the written clues by courier could be the first step. It is advisable to include a love quote at the end of each clues.
Preparing the rendezvous with dreamy features will add an extra dash of romances and adventures to the game.
Easter egg scavenger hunt
The game is played by kids in the Easter morning. I do have a fine memory of playing the hunt, searching for those eggs with undying hope that we could find them for my family knew that unfounded eggs would be a vile attacker on the nasal faculty. Yuck, that smell?
But the traditional form can be done away with many new, modified versions, even some has no eggs at all
.Replacing dull eggs with delicious candies can encourage healthy and whole-hearted participation.
Replacing real eggs with plastic eggs and putting a note with mild, simple riddle will tax the kid’s brain. It will ultimately increase the comprehensive ability of the child.
A walk with Jesus is one of the popular variation in which adult takes their kid outside while narrating Jesus’s crucifixion story and asking the kids to collect something relevant to story. For example, if the narrator has reached to point where Jesus was wrapped with linen, the child may be asked to find a piece of clothes in the vicinity. The child who brings the material quick will be awarded a point. Winner is that child who earns maximum points.
Crazy Christmas scavenger hunt
As the name suggest, the game is set around the yuletide. The organizer collects and places unusual Christmas items in the hunt area prior to the party. The participants should then walk around the premise and try to point out what items seem odd or out of place. Each one of the participant should be given a sheet of paper before allowing them to roam around. The guests should then roam and write the item they think are unusual. After finishing the seeing and writing session, the written list is brought for verification. The guest with maximum number of correct guesses wins the game.
Other Scavenger Hunt Ideas (Outdoors and miscellaneous)
Baby shower hunts
The guest are presented with a list of rhymes to solve while playing this cute little baby scavenger hunt. The organizer may leave a blank in the rhyme which should be solved by the participant. Based on complexity and level of competition needed, organizer may give hint to the nature of the absent word like you may say the word is associated with medicines and patient care, and also used in household as a hint for thermometer. The participant should find the right answer in order to move on to next clue. The end may be designed to award the contestant with maximum number of correct answers.
Neighbor house hunt
This variation is a fun way of getting acquaintances with your neighbor. Should you inform that you are hosting and playing such a game, the adventurous elements soar up. The task here could ask the participant to take a walk around the agreed precincts and come back with a list of item provided. It can be as easy as number of houses with slanted roof or as difficult as house with bird door knocker.
Also it may be consented to prepare a list of unique happenings at the start of the game. But it is to be ensured that the happening will continue till the game concludes. A dog chasing rats is fine but the chase should be continued till the end of the game. The idea here is to celebrate the uniqueness of each neighborhood.
Scavenger hunt ideas for a diva’s party
This form exists due to the newsworthiness divas and babes from tinsel town carries. Consequently, the game is popular in the fair sex community. The needful items includes as many as newspaper as possible. The participating team of ladies are also provided with a pair of scissors. The catch is to collect news concerning the glam ladies and divas like finding articles written by female journalist, or ads for female beauty product – the list can be extended as high as needed. The team that collects maximum number of news wins the game.
The prime concern of the organizer should be to equally distribute the newspaper among the teams.
Mall scavenger hunt
The organizer comes up with riddles which upon solution gives the location of the correct mall where a list of items should be bought by the participating team. In other variation, the task may also include taking photos of the item in question. The team that finishes all the task quickly than others wins the game.
However, the organizer and participant should have to take prior permission with the mall’s stakeholders. Also some malls don’t permit photography. Additionally, the participant should not be noisy and annoying. The game-spirit should not compromise the usual environs of the mall.
Got any more Scavenger Ideas you want to share with us? Leave us in the comment below.
