Scavenger Hunt NYC: Best Ideas in 2022

Updated: August 08, 2022

Scavenger hunts can be a great way to experience new locations or to build team skills and for team bonding.

Universities, businesses, and tourist locations use scavenger hunt-style engagement exercises daily to help connect people with the places and people all around them.

Scavenger hunts tap into team building skills and help create an engaging experience with the world around the team or individuals working on the tasks in the hunt. This kind of activity taps into all kinds of problem-solving skills while also accessing emotional awareness of the activities being undertaken. 

Scavenger hunts create lasting memories and bonding between people which makes them a great way to create team bonds as well as to guide visitors to have experiences that will stick with them long after they have visited a location. 

Scavenger Hunt NYC: Best Ideas in 2021

NYC is full of exciting places to visit and things to do. Building a scavenger hunt that speaks to a business team, students in the local area, or visitors to the city can be as easy as picking out some of the many landmarks that are worth visiting when you come to the NYC area.

While business and student scavenger hunts might be targeted at skills that are needed for work in a team or while at college, you can still incorporate NYC landmarks and information. This makes NYC scavenger hunts a great way to connect students, visitors, and students with the city and its history.

Building Your NYC Scavenger Hunt Activity 

Building scavenger hunts is fun and easy. This is especially true when you are working with an exciting and landmark-filled place like NYC.

Team Building Activities for Students

If you are building a scavenger hunt for students, you can incorporate travel to locations on campus with information about NYC and its history.

Team Building Activities for Work

For businesses, refocusing the efforts of the team on company values and teamwork can also be tied into NYC trivia and information related to your unique industry. 

Visitors can be guided through scavenger hunts that encompass large parts of the area as well as sending them to locations within a museum or a zoo or other location. NYC is a huge and populous place that offers many chances to engage with unique features of the area while also building team bonds, learning problem-solving skills, and creating memories.

1. Photo Hunts Around the Big Apple

It can be really fun to send your team of scavenger hunt participants to collect photos at unique locations throughout NYC. Make sure that they visit memorable places that are commonly visited for photo ops, or send them to locations that are specific to your business or school.

• [PHOTO]: NYC may be the busiest place in the world. Provide some balance and take a moment to try and be the most relaxed person in the entire city. Snap a team selfie relaxing as hard as possible in the center of the Central Park.
• [PHOTO]: It’s a narrow passageway to the top of Lady Liberty. Snap a photo of the inside of the Statue of Liberty.

Your teams can collect photos at each of the required locations and they will learn navigation skills that will come in handy later when they are making their way around the city, or campus in the case of college students. 

These images also create memories that can be shared or referred back to in the future when the scavenger hunt is referenced. Being able to remind visitors, students, and business partners about the fun that was had during the scavenger hunt will reinforce bonds made during the hunt.

2. Video Searches Around New York City

Technology these days makes it easy to create videos of activities. You can ask your participants to engage in video activities at check-in points or you can request that they video their problem-solving processes as they complete hunt tasks.

• [VIDEO]: First, find the most impressive street performer you can. Second, recreate the performance yourself and record it.
• [VIDEO]: Snap a video of a team member eating the largest slice of pizza you can find.

Video of these activities can bring back fun memories after the hunt is completed and in the case of business use or college team building, you can use video to go over places where teamwork could have been better or other team-building skills could have been leveraged. 

3. Question and Quiz Activities Around NYC

These activities are a great way to work with students or business people to help cement important information in their knowledge banks. Company rules and policies, NYC trivia and information as well as college campus rules are all relayed in a meaningful and lasting way with question and answer activities. 

• [Q&A]: What does MOMA stand for?
• [Q&A]: Which bridge into the city is the oldest?

Quizzes can be great tools to help your scavenger hunt participants to recap what they have learned as they undertook their hunt. You can review NYC trivia, business, or campus trivia as you conduct these quizzes and reward teams for fast completion of the skills.

Quizzes help cement knowledge and also help encourage team-building is the teams are allowed to work together on the answers.

5. Using the App For Your New York Scavenger Hunt 

Our app is a great addition to the scavenger hunt process because it can collect images, videos, and much more! Your teams will be able to see what they have done in real-time and be able to track other teams. This can be very helpful when you are working on a scavenger hunt that spreads teams out across large areas.

Later, the app can recount information gathered during the hunt for discussion and review.

6. QR Codes

If you are using our app, you can use QR code check-ins for your scavenger hunt! This can be a great way to track team progress and it makes for concrete check-ins along the course. QR codes can also be used to launch new activities inside the app at set locations.

Having check-ins at these important locations makes sure that your teams come into contact with all the right parts of the New York Experience.

Scavenger Hunts Around New York City Can Create Lasting Bonds and Memories

Scavenger hunts are a great way to encourage team-building as well as teaching about NYC itself. Using our app helps link the experience to skills and objectives, teaching your teams to find information in a cohesive way and to track their progress.

Technology makes scavenger hunts that much more fulfilling and the app will track results and other information to make a review of the process much easier when the hunt is concluded.

Scavenger hunts are a fun and engaging way to teach teamwork, build bonds among students, visitors, and coworkers, and learn about NYC as a place.

If you are ready to take your visitor experience or your team-building activities to the next level, scavenger hunt activities are the perfect way to accomplish this goal!