Our scavenger hunt ideas are always popular posts, so here’s another one – a travel scavenger hunt.
This can be used as a standalone youth work session when you just want something fun to do, or it could be used in tandem with a world awareness session.
Here’s how to run a travel scavenger hunt:
Resources
- Cameras (although cellphone cameras are fine)
- Travel scavenger hunt list
- Pens
- Projector, screen & laptop to display all the scavenger hunt photos at the end
- Prize(s) for the winning team
Instructions
Take your young people to a local shopping mall or high street. Split them into teams and send a leader with them. Although your group may be old enough to do this scavenger hunt without leaders, it’s a perfect opportunity to build relationships.
Provide each group with a copy of the travel scavenger hunt list (see below) and a pen – this is so that they can check off each item on the list as they go along. The purpose of this scavenger hunt is for them to take photos of all the items on the list but in a creative way (this will be explained in more detail below). Advise them that they can’t just take a photo of a country on a map or travel book, as this would be way too easy!
Your young people are going to be representing your youth group while they’re out and about, so remind them of your behavior policy, group agreement, etc. Also let them know of any particular boundaries for the scavenger hunt (e.g. must stay within the mall/must stay on the high street, etc).
Finally, arrange a time and location for them to all meet at the end. To make sure they arrive on time – or so that they don’t cheat by trying to spend more time than other groups taking photos – consider warning them that their team will be deducted 1 point for every minute that they’re late.
Travel Scavenger Hunt List
The list should consist of countries that they can take photos of in a creative way – this will often be based on how the country is pronounced phonetically, but not necessarily. Give the groups a few examples of what you mean by this, such as:
- Oman – Take a photo of a group of women (i.e. zero man)
- India – Take a photo of something inside Bambi (i.e. in deer)
- Andorra – Take a photo of an Anne Of Green Gables book next to a Dora The Explorer book (i.e. Anne Dora)
Now that you have an idea of what we mean, here’s a list of 21 countries that work well as part of a travel scavenger hunt list:
- Bahrain
- Belize
- Bhutan
- Chile
- China
- Finland
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Jordan
- Kuwait
- Mali
- Moldova
- Panama
- Philippines
- Russia
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- South Korea
- Togo
- Turkey
Winners
As with most games, the team with the highest number of points at the end wins. However, there are two elements to the scoring with this scavenger hunt:
- Teams should be awarded one point for each country they successfully take a photo of
- Bonus points should be awarded based upon creativity, ingenuity, getting members of the public involved, etc
If you liked this idea, check out our other youth scavenger hunts and youth work session plan ideas. You may also like our sister site that has other travel scavenger hunt ideas.
We’ve also published a book with dozens of this type of activity – 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas. Pick up your copy from Amazon.
Questions: What other countries would you add to the travel scavenger hunt list? And how would you suggest the photos could be taken? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.
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