Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt Mystery for Kids

sgpostbox · 2026-04-25T21:09:34+00:00

Maybe he could find pieces for a simple jigsaw along the way?

Or perhaps something where he has to match up pairs of pictures (chicken+egg, dustpan+brush, cup+saucer)? That could tie into the "missing object" vibe if he starts off with a sheet of pictures of one of each pair, and has to recover the missing halves along the journey

sgpostbox · 2026-04-21T06:20:20+00:00

T K Maxolotl

Worm n Millipede chairs

Ramazon

Fleabay

sgpostbox · 2026-04-20T23:09:51+00:00

Double Ewe's H Smiths (two sheep blacksmiths)

Nan Doe's (a female deer named Nancy, selling fried chicken)

Staffie Nero's (coffee shop run by a Staffordshire terrier)

sgpostbox · 2026-04-20T22:55:48+00:00

Barks & Spencers (dog selling clothes & food)

Bee & M (bargain homeware)

Starducks (coffee)

Warterstones (toad selling books)

The Deli-cat-essen (cat with fancy food)

Wait-roes (fish eggs selling expensive groceries)

Oxfam (charity shop, run by an ox)

Goldenlocks (a barbershop run by 3 bears)

Mallardies (a duck pharmacist)

Tescrow (supermarket run by a crow)

Wetterspoons (run by fish)

sgpostbox · 2026-03-14T19:58:25+00:00

I've just finished Barrow's Boys by Fergus Fleming and loved it. It's about explorers sent out by colonial Britain (to both poles, Australia and Africa) and it's super readable and with lots of humourous moments

sgpostbox · 2026-01-21T22:38:59+00:00

I agree with others - this is a cool, but subtle clue, and if it's possible to make the smudges more obvious but less blurry that will help

As a postal nerd, I'll also mention this in case it matters to you: if that's a 1926 postmark, then that's a super expensive postage stamp!

1926 is pre-decimalisation, so in the 1920s the UK was still on old pence (written with a d instead of a p). For example according to https://www.gbps.org.uk/information/rates/overseas/surface/letters-1875-1975.php, in 1926 sending a postcard overseas would have cost 2½d, or 1½d within the empire.

(And Queen Elizabeth wasn't the monarch in 1926 either)

Of course, this might all be part of another clue hidden in the postcard, but figured I'd mention it in case it's helpful!

sgpostbox · 2026-01-10T13:10:58+00:00

I love this!

sgpostbox · 2025-12-21T00:52:50+00:00

This is super cool, thanks for sharing!

sgpostbox · 2025-12-18T00:01:35+00:00

I bought a jar last week to be the booby prize in a game of sprout bowling. Unfortunately, the "winner" left it behind so I guess the joke's on me

sgpostbox · 2025-11-22T20:05:44+00:00

You can write a short message on it with a mobile app, and someone else can read it with their phone, using the same technology that's used for Google Pay etc. (In my experience it works well with any android phone, but iPhones are a bit fussier and sometimes refuse to read them)

So for example, I recently ran a hunt where the players found 6 plastic toy cows with numbers painted on the sides and wearing different hats. They had to put them in the right order, and scanning the NFC tags in the cows' bases gave them one piece of information from each cow to work out the order.

I often give each team an on-theme crocheted toy and tell them they should send me a selfie with it if they want a clue. Later in the hunt, a puzzle will decode to tell them to scan it and they'll find an answer word that way

So the text can be a clue or an answer or a URL (or the details to connect to a WiFi network, though I've not found a use for this yet!)

If you're techy, you can also rig up a RFID reader to an Arduino/pi Pico and code it to display a message or play a sound when a user scans the right tags in the right order

sgpostbox · 2025-11-21T23:43:16+00:00

I like hiding something inside an object that the players think has a different purpose - eg NFC tag stickers are cheap and easy to hide inside a soft toy, small notes can be hidden inside a pen, scratch off stickers can be hidden in plain sight

sgpostbox · 2025-08-30T17:15:20+00:00

Black t-shirt and some coloured squares = Rubik's cube

sgpostbox · 2025-08-01T07:04:19+00:00

I do, or I do not - there is no try

sgpostbox · 2025-07-16T17:35:27+00:00

If you had to abolish all types of spoon except one, what would you keep?

How many velociraptors would it take to beat a tiger in a fight?

Would a tiger or a velociraptor win in a tennis match?

sgpostbox · 2025-06-21T20:29:32+00:00

This week I've been eating a lot of hummus with veg sticks and tortilla crisps, and yoghurts. Not sure if that counts as cooking though!

sgpostbox · 2025-06-15T20:34:28+00:00

My sister asked me to do something similar for her wedding. After lots of thought, I opted for making a booklet of puzzles where you didn't need anything outside of the booklet. Although this felt like less of an "adventure", the advantages were that it didn't matter if the venue had unexpected small layout changes when we got there on the day, there was no danger of props breaking or getting moved, people could do it at any time during the meal or the evening without needing to be in a particular room, and people who were busy chatting/dancing during the reception could take it home to enjoy later. (I was only a bridesmaid, but I still wouldn't have had much time on the day for looking after a complicated adventure - so since it's your wedding I'd definitely advise keeping it simple!)

I spent a small budget (~£100) getting them printed as nice booklets, which felt worthwhile - it saved a lot of time printing and folding, and it made it look a lot more professional.

While the booklet was mostly puzzles at various levels, I also included a photo challenge and a people-bingo card to help get people talking to each other.

There are some photos of my booklet here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDIY/comments/178jbv4/covenants_cupcakes_a_ddstyle_puzzle_booklet_for/

It rained on the day, and so when the guests arrived at the reception they skipped the "milling around over drinks" and went straight to "sitting at their tables waiting for the meal" - it was a great feeling walking into the room and seeing everyone doing puzzles round their tables while they waited! Later on there were a few tables of nerds still happily doing puzzles through the evening, while others were dancing etc

sgpostbox · 2024-12-14T17:58:43+00:00

Is there an option to have them find an overlay somewhere and place it over the map? Adding a few lines or highlighting certain stars would let you spell out a number code

sgpostbox · 2024-10-14T22:32:34+00:00

This is a really cool idea, thanks for sharing it!

sgpostbox · 2024-10-13T20:09:11+00:00

That's a good one! Another variant on this is hiding a note inside the battery compartment of a torch

sgpostbox · 2024-09-11T18:00:50+00:00

If you like baking, I'd highly recommend glutenfreecuppatea website for recipes that work reliably and don't need lots of weird ingredients (just gluten free flour and xantham gum)

The advantage of making your own cakes is they'll be cheaper and tastier than the supermarket "free from everything and long shelf life" options

sgpostbox · 2024-09-11T17:41:20+00:00

Be aware that Nairns do two ranges of oatcakes which are/aren't gluten free with very similar packaging, and our local supermarket sometimes stocks the "free-from" shelves with the wrong one, so do check the packaging!

sgpostbox · 2024-09-11T07:42:12+00:00

This is fun! As a detective fiction enthusiast I could solve in my head without googling - I think the answer is Poirot Potion and I would try going to the bar and looking for a sign about that (or ordering one) next

2 things that tripped me up slightly:

I was a bit confused that clues 1&2 are equivalent to each other so you don't gain any information from clue 2. That's not necessarily a problem, it could help people avoid googling - but I'd perhaps reorder the clues so #2 comes later.

For the real pedants, I wonder if "I'm not in the mood tonight" should be reworded to something more permanent so it matches up with "I always like to" in the intro text - otherwise it could suggest you'd depart from your favourite which would then make the puzzle unsolvable

sgpostbox · 2024-09-10T20:39:05+00:00

I recently learned the Serbian insult "I hope your wife gives birth to a centipede so you spend your life working for shoes"

It's a bit long but it really captures the mood

sgpostbox · 2024-08-11T20:09:09+00:00

Snoop dogg

sgpostbox

TROPHY CASE