On this page you’ll find all the coolest around town scavenger hunt list ideas and printables for adults and teens!
Print and send out these around town scavenger hunt invitations to each guest to notify them of the activity you are planning:
When creating the scavenger hunt lists, write things that each team needs to actually collect, and other things that can’t be collected and can be photographed with a digital camera and/or taped on video. Here are example scavenger hunt list ideas of things each team needs to collect during the scavenger hunt:
- A restaurant napkin
- A family recipe from a local resident
- A take-out menu from a chinese restaurant
- A copy of the front page of the local newspaper (can’t buy the newspaper!)
- A bag full of as much trash you can pick up (can’t take from trash cans!)
- A fortune cookie (extra points if the word “happy” appears in the the fortune cookie note)
- A change of address card from the post-office
- A “buy one, get one free” coupon
- A receipt for 30 cents worth of gas
- Catch a bus from ____ to ____ and bring back the ticket
- A business card of a lawyer (extra points if his first name is “John”)
- A disposable toilet seat cover
- A stranger’s autograph (extra points if his/her name is “Jordan”)
- Atleast 50 cents worth of money found on the floor
If you want to make things a bit harder, great scavenger hunt list ideas is to add things that have a specific color, touch, smell, sound, or any other characteristic.
To spice things up, add things to the list each team will need to photograph and/or video-tape. Here are a few example scavenger hunt list ideas of photographs each team needs to come back with:
- Entire team in the dark with flashlights at their faces
- Entire team sitting with an unknown family at a restaurant (1 extra point for each person in the picture who is smiling)
- Someone who is atleast 85 years old (while holding their ID)
- Entire team with someone famous (extra points if it’s someone famous that none of the teammates personally know)
- Entire team’s reflection in something other than a mirror
- One of the members of the team standing in front of (or sitting on) a statue
- Entire team in a pet store (extra points for each team-member holding an animal)
- Entire team in a bathtub or shower (with clothes on of course…) (extra points if everyone is wearing shower caps on their heads)
- Entire team standing by a red convertible car (extra points if everyone is sitting in the convertible car with the car’s owner)
- Entire team on a spiral staircase
- A team member hugging a stranger
- One teammate jumping off of a swing (he/she must be in mid-air in the photograph)
- A teammate pumping gas in a stranger’s car
- Entire team standing right next to a Harley Davidson (extra points if biker is in the photo)
- A teammate playing with a pinball machine
- The entire team on a tree
- Entire team on a slide (one in front of the other)
- Entire team in front of an ice-cream truck (extra points if everyone is licking an ice-cream)
- A team member sitting on a fire truck with a fireman
- A member of your group handcuffed to a police officer
- Entire team playing Twister
- Entire team “I can’t believe we all fit in here!” (extra points for the most creative…)
- Graffiti in a washroom
- Atleast 3 teammates helping fold clothes in a public laundry mat
- Entire team with a mascot
- The whole team standing in a boat
- The entire team sharing one soda (each teammate has their own straw)
- Entire team in a phone booth
- Atleast two teammates in a dog-house
- A team-member delivering a meal to a stranger in a restaurant
- Atleast two members standing on a diving board
- Entire team behind a display window of a retail store acting out as a store window display
- Entire team jumping (everyone must be in mid-air for the picture to count)
The following example scavenger hunt list ideas are video-taping scenarios each team needs to video-tape:
- Get a policeman/women to sing your country’s national anthem (from beginning to end!)
- Do a dramatic earthquake scene in a public place (extra points if on the video the scene really looks like an earthquake)
- A man with a beard shaking hands with someone on your team
- Entire team needs to stage a Kung-Fu battle on the sidewalk outside a prestigious hotel
- A teammate walking the dog of someone you all don’t know
- One or more members of the team singing at a karaoke bar
- Get all your teammates inside shopping carts (except for whoever is pushing the carts and whoever is videotaping) and roll the carts from on end of the super market to the other
- A team-member break dancing in the middle of a mall
- A little kid singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
- A teammate washing the window of a stranger’s car (ask first…)
- The whole team sings a famous song from a famous movie while standing in front of a movie theater
- Go to a toy store and someone on your team yells “OH MY GOSH IT’S A BARBIE!!” really loud
- The whole team doing the Macarena dance together in a public place
- One or more members of a team standing under a public clock at an exact time (such as 1:24 p.m.)
- A teammate asking a stranger if they can marry them (extra points if the stranger says “Yes”)
- Atleast two teammates hanging upside down on the monkey bars singing the “Pledge of Allegiance” to the tune of a Beatles song
- A dog relieving himself on a fire hydrant
- Get a stranger to let you bowl for him/her during their own game (extra points if you get a Strike)
- A team member going to a department store and trying on a shirt or dress that is several sizes too small, then asking the clerk if it fits
- Someone on the team chugging an entire can of soda and then belching
- Getting a guy to try on a dress
- Any of the teammates doing a performance skit (could be anything – juggling, dancing, singing, etc.) in the middle of a very crowded street (extra points if someone gives money at the end of the skit) OR Several members of the team joining a street entertainer in his/her act
- A team member washing dishes at a restaurant
- A teammate hanging upside-down on monkey bars for at least 10 seconds while making monkey sounds
- Convince a stranger to let you taste their food
- A team member spontaneously interviewing 3 strangers: ask “what is your conception of God?”
- A team member reciting a love poem to a stranger (extra points if it’s in a Shakespearian way)
- An unknown couple telling the story of how they met
- A group member doing a lap in a pool
- Someone on your team getting a drink from a water fountain while someone else is riding piggyback on their back
- Have three strangers tell a funny joke
- A team member helping to carry a stranger’s groceries
- Conduct an aerobics class at the park publicly for atleast 2 minutes straight
- Capture a fax machine receiving a copy of a 1-dollar bill
- Going through a fast food drive-thru with one person carrying another piggyback making car sounds (don’t forget to order something even if it’s just a drink)
- Everyone playing “Duck, Duck, Goose” in a parking lot
- Buy a pack of cookies with pennies only
- One teammate does a dance in front of a stranger, then ask the stranger to score him/her on a scale from 1 to 10 (extra points if he/she gets a score of 1 or 10 – without telling the stranger what score to give)
- In public, a teammate puts a tiara or crown on their head and says “Hello, I’m the Queen of England” in an English accent
- A member of the team singing a 70s song on a stage
- Your whole team humming the Mission Impossible song while everyone acts like a spy going front to back in a store
- The whole team singing a song while in a restaurant (extra points for each singing stranger)
Print out these free around town scavenger hunt list ideas:
The above scavenger hunt list ideas can be changed and altered for more of a challenge by adding scavenger hunt clues and riddles. Check out these two whole pages full of scavenger hunt clues and scavenger hunt riddles (geared for older kids but easily used to fit teens and adults).
Create your own scavenger hunt list ideas, ones that might fit your group of people’s personalities. Try making funny, absurd, and creative situations each team needs to photograph and/or video-tape: have the teams track down obscure city landmarks, solicit the participation of strangers, and funny scenarios the teammates need to act out in public – for example the entire team needs to sing Christmas carols in front of a house (in April !).
You can require that each scene should be taken in a certain order. For more scavenger hunt list ideas – write a quote, saying and/or conceptual sentence and then the team-members need to video-tape their association of the sentence, saying, or quote from a song, movie, or book.
Make sure everyone knows that each video-taped scenario needs to be CLEARLY filmed, if it is only partially filmed or not really understood – they might not get the points for that specific assignment. Don’t forget to read and make sure everyone knows the Scavenger Hunt Rules before going on the scavenger hunt.
More scavenger hunt list ideas is to add trivia questions that need to be answered, for example “How many windows does the state hall have?”, “When was the main train station built?”, “What is the current exhibit at the local museum?”, “What movies are playing at the main movie theater?”, etc. To find the answers to these questions, the team members will need to go to the places and figure them out.
Plan a scavenger hunt viewing party! After each team comes back from the scavenger hunt, it’s best to meet up at home or a place each team can connect their video camera up to a TV (that way everyone can watch the funny scenarios together!). You can order a few pizzas and refreshments for everyone to enjoy.
As a token, you can send out a picture to each guest with thank-you cards. Here are some great around town scavenger hunt thank-you cards to print and send out:
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