I am going to take the opportunity in this post to describe the various ways that scavenger hunts can be used to make an event more fun and enjoyable for everyone.  Subsequent posts will dive further into each of the scavenger hunt opportunities and provide you with specific examples on how they would be run :) For now, we’ll just skim the surface of each one…

Kid’s Birthday Party Ideas:
It’s your turn to host a kid’s birthday party.  The difficulty in this is normally:
a) keeping all of the kids entertained and
b) keeping all of the kids entertained :)
What do kids love? Prizes and winning things! By hosting a scavenger hunt for kids in either your basement, family home, or wherever the birthday party is taking place, you can ensure that the kids are entertained for the duration of the hunt, and be happy in the end by receiving a prize for themselves.  The best way to make this work, if there is a large group of kids, is to divide the kids in groups of 2 – 3.  Each group would be running the same type of scavenger hunt, with the same types of clues as the other groups, however in a different order.  This way – you won’t have kids running into one another while the hunt is in play and also, this minimises the number of hunts you would need to put together yourself. And of course, the end of the hunt will lead each kid to a prize they will enjoy winning.

Team Building Exercise:
Ahh… now team building exercises for the workplace don’t always have to be the same type of activities that you don’t enjoy participating in.  By creating a scavenger hunt for your company’s department group, this will allow individuals to:
a) Put on their thinking caps to determine where to go for the next clues
b) Enjoy and have fun out of a workplace event
c) And most importantly… work amongst a team in a collaborative way and get to know some individuals within the company that much better! :)
The scavenger hunt can take place within the company compounds, within walking distance of the company, or a combination of both.  Depending on the size of the group, groups of 3 or 4 are most ideal.  At the end, the winning team to arrive at the last clue first can be eligible to win a small gift card like a $5 or $10 gift card.

Birthday or Anniversary gifts:
I know we already discussed a valentine’s day hunt in our previous post, but the same concept can be done for other special occasions for your significant other (or even for your friend’s!!) for birthdays or anniversaries.  Having the clues relate specifically to the person will make the hunt all the more sweeter for them and for the hunt to lead to a gift will make this day all the more special for them and a day for them to always remember…  Check out the Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt Ideas post for more information and an example hunt of how you can set one of these up for that special someone :)

Easter Hunt:
With Easter approaching, the hunt for those chocolate eggs and bunnies doesn’t have to be completely a blind hunt!  By using a scavenger hunt tool like www.textclues.com, the hidden goods can be systematically placed in specific areas of where the hunt is taking place.  Once the correct answer to a clue has been found/answered, it can lead the hunter to some of the delicious goods… or you can make them antsy by making the goods only appear after certain clues so they will never know when to expect a prize! ;)  By doing it this way, also, you won’t end up finding chocolate from last year hidden away under your furniture again…

We’re going to stop here for now but next post we’ll talk about a few more scavenger hunt ideas (On-Campus hunts for pub crawls or school tours, teenage or adult parties, retreats/church youth group activities, and even for educational purposes!) before getting into more detail about them all. Stay tuned! :)