Treasure hunt: riddles for small and big adventures
Who wouldn't like to feel like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft for once? You don't need to build a movie set or travel the world to do that - with the right treasure hunt riddle ideas, you can create a thrilling adventure on your doorstep. Would you like some inspiration for this? Then you've come to the right place! Feel free to get inspired by our treasure hunt puzzles.
Why does a treasure hunt need riddles?
There is a treasure hidden somewhere in the city. Who will be the first to find it? The person who can best solve tricky puzzles. Behind each riddle is a clue that leads to the treasure. Where would the fun be if the location were known to everyone? It only gets really exciting when the search becomes a challenge that you can master together.
Together as a team you solve tricky puzzles and get closer and closer to the treasure step by step. The suspense is rising. Who will come up with a brilliant idea? Who will succeed in cleverly combining all the clues? Puzzles turn the treasure hunt into more than just a race. They turn it into a fun competition that requires team spirit, deductive skills and logical thinking.
Treasure hunt riddles by type
Treasure hunts can have countless different facets. Just as special as the treasures to be found are the paths to get there. There are many different types of puzzles to choose from, and solving them will lead you to your destination.
Treasure map riddles
For a treasure map puzzle you need a treasure map, sure. But where's the best place to get one? Just download it from the Internet? That's possible - but not very individual. Instead, you can easily make the treasure map yourself!
Various aspects are important here. A genuine treasure map cannot be deciphered easily. Secret writings or symbols are part of every treasure map and make it a challenge to decipher them. So use secret symbols to represent certain characteristic points in the environment. If you don't want to design them yourself, use symbol fonts, for example. Surely you will find something suitable to encode places from your region with pictograms.
Or you can work with street names in a coded form. For example, numbers could stand for certain letters or their position in the alphabet. Very clever minds can also decipher Morse code or a binary code.
It is also common practice to distribute the treasure map as a puzzle. At the beginning of the treasure hunt, only a first piece of the puzzle is available to the team of adventurers. A clue is hidden on it that leads to the next piece and so on. Once you have correctly deciphered all the clues and found all the puzzle pieces, put them together as a team. The road to the treasure is finally paved.
Hint: Make a treasure map yourself - this is how it works
To make the scavenger hunt something special, the treasure map should look attractive. Use paper with an unusual texture or go for a slightly weathered copy.
Let's admit it, real treasure map paper is pretty rare. But the look is quite easy to recreate yourself. All you need is some coffee or black tea and a spray bottle. Let the liquid cool down, pour it into the bottle and spray the paper with it. It will look even more authentic if you crumple the sheet of paper slightly beforehand and tear off the edges. You can finish it off by rolling up the prepared treasure map and sealing it with wax.
Adventurer stories
An exciting treasure hunt is full of adventures. It's a good idea if you wrap it up in a story. Fictional adventure stories are not just for kids. Add some spice to the treasure hunt by assigning exciting roles, such as:
- Detectives
- Undercover investigators
- Smugglers
- Members of an ancient noble family
- Wealthy heirs
You then design the riddles for the treasure hunt accordingly. Detectives solve a criminal case, smugglers want to bring an object to the destination first.
Good to know
Treasure hunts from myCityHunt combine exciting adventure stories with the real environment of your city. Thereby you will get to know your town from a completely new perspective or explore new cities.
Knowledge riddles
You know your city like the back of your hand? Prove it by turning the treasure hunt into a knowledge puzzle. In doing so, you can show that no one can fool you about your hometown.
This is how it works: there are tricky puzzles waiting at each station of your quest, the answers to which will take the participants to the next station. Smartphones and Google are taboo for these treasure hunt puzzles! Rely on your own knowledge and decipher the riddles in teamwork. Together you will solve them for sure!
Does the team lack a bit of local knowledge though, because you haven't lived there for long or you're going on a treasure hunt in a foreign city? That's no problem at all, in fact it's a great thing! Then the participants walk through the streets with their eyes wide open, reading signs and looking very closely at inscriptions on well-known buildings. The answers may lie dormant everywhere!
Also, do not be afraid to approach other people and ask questions. They may even want to join and you'll have made some nice new friends right away! You never know what surprises treasure hunts and their riddles hold.
Accessories for a treasure hunt with puzzles
For a good portion of excitement and fun, integrate various accessories into your treasure hunt. First and foremost there should be a treasure map, which you can make look quite authentic and old with our tips. And what do you need to find out where the path indicated by the map leads? That's right, a compass! The treasure hunt is the perfect opportunity to finally take out your old compass that has been laying around unused for years!
You do not have a compass? No problem! What you certainly do have is a smartphone. Just download a compass app and let the fun begin! Other accessories that you can use to make the treasure hunt even more exciting are, for example:
- Flashlights: attach reflectors to a route. This way, the path is not recognizable until the participants light it up.
- Combination locks: the code to open them is hidden behind puzzles.
- Magnets: with a magnetic fishing rod, the goal is to “fish” for hidden clues.
- Clues to bury: if there is a beach or something similar nearby, bury a clue. It is good to keep in mind any regulations that prohibit this.
So, what are you waiting for? With these treasure hunt riddle tips, nothing stands in the way of a successful treasure hunt!
Organize a treasure hunt yourself or book it?
Equipped with the above information, you have already taken a big step towards creating your treasure hunt. However, you will have noticed that there are many things to consider and that developing your treasure hunt takes a lot of time. There is also the question of whether the participants will like their treasure hunt puzzles in the end. Therefore, it is worth considering whether you want to plan and organize the treasure 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.
