A mall photo scavenger hunt is perfect for players of all ages, but works particularly well with teenagers, younger kids and youth groups.
This is because the shopping mall has loads of stores in one place, so they’re able to find all the items on the list without needing to be driven to different stores.
If you have a large amount of players, it’s also a great team building exercise as you can split the players into teams who can then work together to find all the items on the list.
What’s A Photo Scavenger Hunt?
With photo scavenger hunts, players only have to take pictures of the listed items rather than actually collect the items. This is ideal for a scavenger hunt at the mall, as it means the players don’t need to buy the items in order to cross them off their list.
Preparation
If you’re organizing this for a large youth group or birthday party, it might be worth contacting the mall in advance to let them know that you’re planning this activity, especially if they aren’t going to have an adult going round with them.
Having said that, scavenger hunts are a fantastic opportunity for leaders to build relationships with young people, so we’d suggest having an adult with each group if possible.
You’ll also need to make sure that each team (or each player if doing this individually) has a camera with them. Seeing as virtually all cellphones have a camera built in nowadays this probably won’t be an issue, but should be checked beforehand just in case.
Mall Photo Scavenger Hunt List
Each team will need to be given a list of items to find. You can create your own list, but if you want to save time and effort then you can use the list we’ve provided below.
There are 20 items on it, as well as three bonus items for teams to find. These bonus items are of a more subjective nature, so the bonus points should be awarded based on who photographed the best example of each of these.
To make things even easier for you, we’ve also produced a free downloadable PDF containing all 20 of the items and the three bonus items. You can therefore print it off right now, or save it down to use in the future.
There are two copies of the same list on the page to reduce the amount of paper you need in order to print them off.
Mall Scavenger Hunt Items
- XL size blue T-shirt with white strip
- Ring costing $999
- Hat with 3 flowers on it
- CD with more than 10 words in the title
- Book with the Eiffel Tower on the cover
- Purple gloves
- Necklace with a turtle on it
- Pair of socks with 6+ colors on them
- Birthday card for a 100 year old
- Unicorn
- Footwear costing more than $200
- 55” television
- Cartoon character underwear
- 5 different versions of Monopoly
- Electric tie rack
- Apron with an animal on it
- Any item that says ‘Home Sweet Home’
- Photo frame with space for 20+ photos
- Rainbow bookmark
- Hockey puck
Bonus Items
- DVD with the strangest movie title
- Funniest T-shirt design
- Most pointless kitchen gadget
Printable Mall Photo Scavenger Hunt List
Winner
The winner will be the team (or player) who has scored the most points, once the bonus items have been taken into account (if you’ve chosen to include those).
If you’re not including these additional items, the winners will therefore be the team that completed the list before all the others (assuming the list does indeed get completed).
Prize
If you want to offer a prize to the winners, gift certificates to a store that’s in the shopping mall are a good option.
Alternatively, you could buy them dessert (or lunch) as their reward.
Tip
One of the best parts of a photo scavenger hunt is looking at each other’s photos afterwards. Therefore, try to go somewhere afterwards and have a laptop or TV connected – that way you can set up a digital slideshow of each team’s photos.
Other Youth Activities
As we mentioned above, this game is great for team building as it gets players working together. If you’re planning this for a youth group as a way to help them build relationships, you can find loads more team building activities for teenagers here.
Get Dozens More Of These Ideas
You can find this mall photo scavenger hunt idea and 51 others in our book – 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas – available now from Amazon.