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How To Do A Scavenger Hunt

If you’ve not organized one before, you’ll need to know how to do a scavenger hunt,

Here’s our step-by-step guide:

Theme

First of all, pick a theme or topic as this will affect how to do the rest of the steps. The theme relates to the items that the players will need to find.

For example, you may choose to do a scavenger hunt based on a special day or holiday like:

  • Christmas
  • Easter
  • Thanksgiving
  • International Talk Like A Pirate Day
  • Halloween
  • Earth Day

Alternatively, you could pick a theme that relates to something you want the players to discover more about – these are popular when organizing scavenger hunts for kids and teenagers. Examples include:

  • Nature
  • Math
  • Internet
  • Nutrition
  • Thanksgiving (such as the history of it)

Or it could be completely random – just give players a list of various items that they need to find.

Type

The next step in knowing how to do a scavenger hunt is to decide on what type of hunt you want to do. It’ll usually either be an item, photo or video scavenger hunt, but occasionally it might simply be observational.

Item

Players have to collect as many items on the list as they can.

Task

Instead of having items to collect, players have to perform tasks. This is usually played as a photo or video scavenger hunt so that there’s proof that the tasks have been completed.

Photo

Players have to take pictures of as many items or tasks on the list as they can.

Video

Players are given tasks that they have to complete that require filming rather than just having photos taken.

Observational

This tends to be used when the above options aren’t available, such as when doing a road trip scavenger hunt.

Location

Next, pick a location. This may be obvious based on the theme (e.g. mall scavenger hunt), but other options could be indoors, the neighborhood, church, the city, etc.

List

Provide the players / teams with a list of items they need to find – check out our scavenger hunt lists for downloadable lists that you can print off.

In addition to items, we like to add bonus tasks to make it even more fun. The tasks are scored slightly differently in that players earn the bonus points based on their creativity, ingenuity, humor, etc, rather than simply for completing it.

Here are some ideas of the kind of bonus tasks you could include:

  • “I can’t believe we all fit in here!”
  • Weirdest Christmas decoration
  • Members of the public pulling scary faces (when doing a Halloween photo scavenger hunt)

Time Limit

Set a time limit that they have to return by. It can be worth imposing a penalty of -1 point for each minute a player is late – this discourages cheating by spending longer on the scavenger hunt than others.

Rules

Advise players of any specific rules, such as where they can and can’t go. If you’re doing this with a youth group or for a children’s birthday party and you’re going to be out in public, it might also be worth setting expectations for their behavior.

Winner

Once the players have finished or their time’s ended, total up how many points each player’s scored – remember to award bonus points if you included any extra tasks.

Prize

Consider awarding a prize to the winner(s), especially if doing this with kids or teenagers (although adults usually wouldn’t say no to a prize either!)

So that’s how to do a scavenger hunt. If you’re feeling stuck at the first step of picking a theme, check out our scavenger hunt ideas for some inspiration.

Types Of Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt Clues
Scavenger Hunt Ideas
Scavenger Hunt Lists
Scavenger Hunt Questions
Scavenger Hunt Riddles




Scavenger Hunt Themes

21st Birthday
30th Birthday
40th Birthday
4th Of July
Adult
Alphabet
Animal
Anniversary
Bachelorette
Backyard
Baseball
Beach
Bible
Biology
Birthday
Book
Candy
Car
Charity
Chemistry
Christian
Christmas
Church
City
Classroom
Color
Computer
DIY
Earth Day
Easter
Eco
Element
English
Fall
Fathers Day
Food
Football
Funny
Geography
Getting To Know You
Grocery Store
Halloween
Harry Potter
Homophone
Hotel
Human Body
Human
Icebreaker
Ikea
Indoor
Internet
Kitchen
Library
License Plate
Mall
Map
Math
Money
Mothers Day
Music
Nature
Neighborhood
New Years Eve
Newspaper
Number
Nutrition
Office
Online
Outdoor
People
Periodic Table
Photo
Pi Day
Pirate
Printable
Purse
Recycling
Road Trip
Romantic
Scavenger Hunt For Kids
School
Science
Scripture
Sports
St Patrick’s Day
Summer
Team Building
Thanksgiving
Things Beginning With
Thrift Store
Travel
Urban
Valentine’s Day
Video
Walmart
Water
Wedding
Winter
Would You Rather
Youth Group
Zoo




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