10 Scavenger Hunt Ideas for Adults Around Town


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In this article, you’ll learn some of the scavenger hunt ideas for adults.

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If you want to make a fun event with your friends but do not know what activity you can do, you should try a scavenger hunt.

A scavenger hunt can be a great option to entertain your friends and make them have a lot of fun making challenges or looking for hidden objects, among many other things.

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Is Scavenger Hunting Popular?

These types of activities are very popular all over the world, but mostly at children’s parties.

It is for this reason that you cannot get many ideas for treasure hunts for adults, which does not make any sense.

No matter how old you are, we assure you that you will enjoy a good scavenger hunt.

So, we want to help you and give you some ideas and recommendations so you can do a scavenger hunt where your friends have fun and enjoy each of the activities.

Remember that preparation and planning are very important, so you can guarantee that all your friends and you will enjoy the moment and that your event is carried out satisfactorily. Let’s start.

Planning the scavenger hunt

Before naming some ideas it is necessary that you know a little about how to carry out the planning of a successful scavenger hunt.

This may seem like a simple job, but the truth is that it involves a lot of effort and concentration.

Then where should you start? You must choose a theme for the treasure hunt.

This will allow you to have a clearer idea of ​​the activities you are going to do and where you are going to carry out the activity.

The topic can be any, and you can even use something about a party that is close, such as Halloween in case of doing the treasure hunt in October, or you can do a treasure hunt for a person who is getting married, making activities related to that topic.

The limit is your imagination.

Once you have your theme defined, we can assure you that you will be able to plan the scavenger hunt much faster.

Now comes the process of inviting your friends. This is important, since you plan the treasure hunt activities with a number of people in mind, especially if you plan to do group activities.

It is for this reason that it is recommended to invite your friends a few weeks before the event so that you can receive confirmation of their attendance and be prepared for any eventuality.

Make sure to make clear in the invitation certain details to your guests, such as the way of dressing, and some basic objects they can use, among other things.

These seem like obvious suggestions, but it is better to prevent problems before they occur.

Ideas for scavenger hunts

Scavenger hunts traditionally consist of giving people a list of objects and looking for them in a given space.

This can be very attractive for children, but young people and adults may not think the same.

In the case of adults, they look for a more complex challenge that requires more concentration, so you need more interesting activities.

When choosing which activities you are going to do, remember to take into consideration the place or places where you are going to carry out the treasure hunt.

1. Search from A to Z

This is a traditional scavenger hunt, but with a slight change: instead of giving a list of specific objects that people should look for, you simply tell them they have to get objects whose name starts with the letter A, another with the letter B and so on until you get to the letter Z.

So, the participants will have to gather 26 objects in a period of time that you can establish.

The activity can be done in teams and the one that has all the objects, or most of them, wins the treasure hunt.

2. Scavenger hunt with riddles

scavenger hunt with riddles

Nothing is more challenging than a good riddle, especially those that are complex to solve.

Then, you can perform a treasure hunt where participants must solve a riddle that gives them a clue to the next, and so on.

The last riddle should include the location of a special object or a specific place and the first team or participant who gets the object or who arrives at the special place will be the winner of the competition.

This activity is very versatile; since you can make the participants travel many places, perform interesting activities and much more.

3. Search with a treasure map

treasure map

This is a simple idea but really fun. It consists of giving the participants or teams a treasure map, indicating the position of some objects, places, people, etc. so that these participants have to travel to several places to win the competition.

In each place, you can place a piece of a puzzle or an object that the teams must save at the end of the scavenger hunt. The team that has traveled the most places will be the winner.

To make this activity more interesting you can give different teams different maps, with different locations, but keep the complexity similar for each team.

4.  Search for places

search for places

Recommended game:

This is an activity designed for people who want to tour the city in order to win the competition.

The activity consists of giving participants a description of important places in your city, ensuring that these places are culturally known.

Then, without saying the name of these places, participants will have to guess which are the places that match the description provided and go to those locations.

The difficulty of this is to give descriptions with as little information as possible, so that participants have to think very carefully where they should go.

At the end of the time that you establish, each team must give you proof that they were in the places you told them. Taking a picture with all the participants is the best option.

5. Re-creation of movie scenes

Most people enjoy movies or have at least seen classic movies like Titanic.

So, in this scavenger hunt, you should ask the teams to look for locations that are most similar to movie scenes, so that they can recreate some important moment.

This may seem very difficult to do, but you do not have to ask them to recreate a moment of a movie perfectly.

Simply by including some element or similar feature of a movie they can meet the challenge.

You can also join the previous activity with this one, specifying which places the participants should go to and which movies they should imitate. Give extra points to teams that are more creative.

6. Perform challenges to obtain objects

Image result for challenge to obtain objects
Source: Slideshare

If you want to do a scavenger hunt in a place like a park, you can make that search a little more interesting by making challenges for the participants to get the objects you ask for.

To do an activity like this you will need help from other people, who will give the instructions in each activity.

Then, these assistants will be distributed throughout the park and participants should find them without any help.

Once the teams find these people, they must complete an activity to get an object. You can do that depending on the activity each object has a higher value or a lower value, making the game more interesting.

7. Search for specific objects

This is a slightly more complex activity that consists of telling the participants to get one or more very specific objects.

For example, you can ask them to get a picture of several popular car models in the city.

A treasure hunt like this can take a long time, so you need to choose very well what the participants should look for.

One way to ensure that the activity does not become tedious is to check for yourself where you can get the objects that you ask for, so that you can give clues to the participants during the activity.

8. Nostalgic scavenger hunt

nostalgic scavenger hunt

For adults the previous decades are full of interesting memories that can make a scavenger hunt set in this theme special.

You can propose a search for objects from different eras, recreate scenes from classic movies, and take pictures of iconic places.

You can make the challenge interesting by giving extra points to teams that use clothes from a specific time, among other things. We are sure that the participants of the activity will enjoy remembering the old times.

9. Treasure hunt with neighbors

treasure hunt with neighbors

If you want to create a connection with your neighbors, then you can plan an activity that involves them. Join a group and ask for a series of objects as if it were an ordinary scavenger hunt.

The special thing about this activity is that you have to get the objects from the neighbors in your community, so that they should help you, giving you the object or making you meet a challenge before handing it to you.

10. Treasure hunt with balloons

Give each group of people a specific color and place balloons of those colors distributed in a specific area. Each balloon can contain information to get an object or a part of a puzzle.

The difficulty of this game would be to get the locations of the balloons without any information or clue.

What should you consider when planning a treasure hunt?

There are certain things you should take into consideration when planning one of these activities.

Remember that planning is very important, so you can guarantee that your friends have fun and do not spend a lot of time in each activity.

  • Establish a level of difficulty: this is very important, since you have to ensure that all participants can be able to perform all the challenges in a satisfactory way.

You must also guarantee that each activity has a solution; you cannot put a riddle whose answer is so difficult that no one passes the first activities.

  • Hold a pre-treasure hunt: each activity must have its rules, and you are the person who must impose those rules. In this sense, you must explain to the participants clearly what they should do, in order to avoid some confusion.

Setting standards ensures that the activity is carried out correctly and that no team has any benefit or advantage over another.

  • Offer a prize or compensation to the winners: this is a very effective way to get the attention of the people so they can carry out the activities with enthusiasm. You can offer bottles of wine or other similar beverage, food baskets, etc.

These are the most basic things you should consider before conducting the scavenger hunt.

You can help the participants with clues or provide help if necessary, ensuring that no activity becomes tedious or boring.

Conclusion

Scavenger hunts are a good way to entertain a group of many people and spend a moment of quality. 

Regardless of which activity you choose, you should have in mind that planning is the most important, especially if you want to carry out a unique and special activity.

You can use some of the ideas previously mentioned and give it a specific theme, that is to say, adapt it to your needs and tastes.

We guarantee that your guests and you will have a lot of fun.

As a last recommendation we tell you not to offer alcoholic beverages when an activity of this type is carried out. If you want to offer this type of drinks, then do it after the scavenger hunt.

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