If you want to organize a scavenger hunt, the following issue quickly arises: What kind of questions should the scavenger hunt contain? After all, the success of a city rally depends mostly on the tasks. Who hasn't experienced it: A treasure hunt, or scavenger hunt begins and all the participants are highly motivated! If the puzzles of the scavenger hunt are monotonous or even contain obvious mistakes, motivation quickly plummets. So the right scavenger hunt questions are essential. But this is easier said than done. So how do you find the right scavenger hunt ideas and implement them skillfully? With these tips, it will be much easier for you to develop suitable scavenger hunt riddles for your urban adventure!
Do the participants have something that connects them and can be included in the scavenger hunt tasks? In the case of a scavenger hunt with a group of friends or a bachelor party, these can certainly be insider questions about the participants. When organizing scavenger hunts for your own sports club, athletically skilled scavenger hunt tasks are, of course, a must. The scavenger hunt tasks don't have to be very serious: Even trivial knowledge that makes the participants smile can lighten the mood. Did you know, for example, that a “stadium wave” common at soccer matches travels through the stadium at an average speed of 40 km/h?
The level of difficulty should also depend on the interests of the participants: While a group of mathematics professors certainly know the first ten decimal places of the number pi, persons not enthusiastic about maths are quickly overwhelmed by it...
You should also clarify the age range of the participants in advance. Adults can solve more challenging tasks, but this does not mean that you have to put less effort into a scavenger hunt for a children's birthday party. After all, the younger scavenger hunters should also be challenged, otherwise boredom quickly sets in. If, on the other hand, the questions are too difficult, this causes frustration. On the other hand, some questions tailored to children can make adults frown. The following points should be considered when organizing scavenger hunts for adults and children.
If you plan an event for children, a classic scavenger hunt is often the tool of choice. Search, find, keep searching and in the end, recover a treasure full of goodies! The tasks should not be too complex and can require some movement from the little ones. Here it can make sense to focus less on questions and more on active tasks: Use chalk to place simple clues on the floor for the children to follow. You can then give instructions at different points. Make them count steps, present a simple riddle to determine the next direction, or challenge them with a climbing task at the playground. But only use tasks that you think the participants are capable of.
With adult participants, the possibilities are almost limitless. From tricky puzzles concerning interaction with outsiders to tasks that require a certain level of fitness, (almost) anything is conceivable. Even vehicles can be included to spread the questions or puzzles over a large area. If you are planning an excursion for your motorbike club, for example, you can locate the scavenger hunt questions along the planned route! This also makes it possible to organize an event over several days. Here you can fully exploit the possibilities of the participants. Of course, you should not overdo it - after all, the whole thing should be fun. The scavenger hunt tasks should also match the participants' age: While older participants are quickly over-challenged with questions about the latest fashion trends, twenty-year-olds may fail with questions about life in the post-war period.
Of course, the best ideas are useless if they don't fit the area of the scavenger hunt. So the development of the scavenger hunt questions should always take the venue into account. The following locations are ideal for a scavenger or treasure hunt. Please note, however, that not every question is suitable for your preferred location!
It should hardly surprise you that urban spaces offer almost unlimited opportunities for a scavenger hunt: Most cities in Europe or Asia can look back on thousands of years of history. This has usually left its mark clearly on the cityscape: Monasteries, towers, and winding alleys often bear witness to the city’s former splendor and are ideal locations for scavenger hunt questions. This way, your scavenger hunt becomes an educational tour through the old town. There are usually information boards that provide the participants with information. Crucial dates or portraits of former rulers are often found on churches, statues, and fountains. Include these in your puzzles, e.g., by integrating the viewing direction of figures and busts into the task!
Tours through nature also offer great potential: a scavenger hunt in the forest, for example, can include questions about the local flora and fauna. A scavenger hunt question can, for example, focus on which tree species grow in a particular part of the forest. Animals can also be the subject of scavenger hunt questions: For example, a puzzle can refer to paw prints of foxes, badgers, or other forest creatures. However, be sure to bear in mind that nature is constantly changing, so the objects referred to in your scavenger hunt tasks often do not stay in one place for long...
Scavenger hunts are usually associated with exercise in the fresh air. However, they can also take place indoors. Of course, this also has an impact on the scavenger hunt questions. Indoor locations have the advantage that you can hide clues without running the risk of them being stolen in the meantime. For example, it is good to place clues on everyday objects such as food, decorative items, and pieces of furniture. There are no limits to your creativity when formulating riddles for indoor scavenger hunts!
If you take these three tips for developing city rally questions to heart, nothing will stand in the way of a successful scavenger hunt!
You still can't think of any suitable scavenger hunt questions? The following suggestions might help you get started:
Create as many different puzzles as possible to challenge all participants. If the puzzles are too one-sided, specialists will get their money's worth, while the average scavenger hunter will quickly become frustrated. This only leads to dissatisfaction. Therefore, the tasks should challenge and promote different talents. Math, logic, general knowledge, powers of observation, or good teamwork are just a few examples.
Codes make the search for suitable city rally questions much easier! They can significantly enhance even simple questions that would otherwise not generate much enthusiasm. The code you choose is up to you. For example, the solution word or the scavenger hunt question can consist of a sentence's first letters. The CAESAR cipher is also popular. There are no limits to your imagination. You should only make sure that deciphering the code is not too difficult.
Why not develop scavenger hunt questions on topics that connect the participants? Is it a company outing among colleagues? Then scavenger hunt puzzles concerning the history of the company are a good choice. Are they members or fans of a sports club? In this case, the club's history is a treasure trove you can draw from. Are questions needed for a bachelor party treasure hunt? Then you should do a little research into the CV of the groom. The possibilities are endless.
Are you still finding it hard to come up with the right scavenger hunt questions? An organized smartphone treasure hunt could be the solution! After all, the city rally questions here have been compiled by experienced scavenger hunt experts!
Equipped with the above information, you have already taken a big step towards creating your scavenger hunt. However, you will have noticed that there are many things to consider and that developing your scavenger hunt takes a lot of time. There is also the question of whether the participants will like their scavenger hunt puzzles in the end. Therefore, it is worth considering whether you want to plan and organize the scavenger hunt yourself or whether you would prefer to use a tried and tested concept. In the following table, we compare the advantages and disadvantages of both options.
| Organize yourself Pros & cons self-organization |
Book tickets Pros & cons ticket booking |
| Very time consuming | Simple booking |
|
|
| Paper only | Intuitive web application |
| Free of charge (except material costs) | Not free of charge |
| Customizable | Not customizable |
The following five question types are frequently used in scavenger hunts:
The following 4 question types are very popular in treasure hunts for children:
Scavenger Hunt
Treasure Hunt
Escape Game
