12 fun challenges for the ultimate scavenger hunt
Look up, look down, look all around with these great scavenger hunts
27 January 2026
Scavenger hunts are a brilliant way to get girls moving, thinking and working together as a team.
Love hide and seek? Want to get exploring? From glow-in-the-dark treasure hunts to secret spy messages and camouflaged finds, we’ve put together 12 creative scavenger hunts that are full of fun, problem-solving and a bit of friendly competition. They’re perfect for all ages and can be adapted for different levels of challenge.
- Rainbow colours: ask everyone to find something for each colour of the rainbow. It could be a red book, a yellow jumper or a green leaf. Girls could race to complete a full set first. To make it harder, don’t allow obvious items, such as clothing, colouring pencils or felt tips.
- A to Z treasure hunt: challenge teams to find one item for every letter of the alphabet. To make it more interesting, have a theme such as ‘things you’d take on camp’ or ‘things you can recycle.’
- Outdoor explore: take the group outdoors with scavenger hunt sheets and try to find natural objects such as smooth stones, prickly leaves, or something colourful. You could also go on a local walk and find things in urban areas, such as a red door, a lamppost, or something showing the town name.
- Riddle me this: hide a series of riddles around the space, each one leading to the next, with a final prize at the end. For an extra challenge, write clues with more than one possible answer, so girls need to explore carefully to find the right one. For example, the answer ‘keys’ could lead to ‘car keys’ or ‘piano keys’.
- Photo safari: give teams a list of things to photograph, such as something round, something funny, or an animal. You can include creative challenges, such as ‘a tree with legs’ or ‘a famous person made from sticks.’ Alternatively, give groups photos or emoji images of items they need to find. To make it harder, use photos from only part of the object, distorted images or zoomed in images.
- Bring me: have a list of items that you can find in your meeting place. They can be easy or a little more challenging. Call out each item, then teams race to find and bring them back. The first team to return with the item, wins a point. The team with the most points at the end wins. You can also play where any team that brings them within a time limit wins a point too.
- We’re going on a (teddy!) bear hunt: hide lots of teddies around a space. Give girls a time limit and see who can find the most. You can also ask teams to find specific teddies, such as ‘a teddy with a blue bowtie and green hat’. The team that brings it back first wins a point, and the team with the most points overall wins.
- Jigsaw piece pursuit: hide pieces of different jigsaw puzzles around the space, with enough for one per team. Each team finds their pieces and assembles the jigsaw. The first team to find their jigsaw, wins.
- Torchlit tour: hide animal photos or soft toys in a darker space and give girls torches. Girls can tick off each animal as they find it. To make it harder, hide smaller animals, use trickier hiding spots or make it timed. You could also hide reusable glow-in-the-dark items, such as stars, for girls to find.
- Giant Cluedo: girls have to work out who stole a certain item and which room it was taken from. Make a set of ‘person,’ ‘location,’ and ‘item’ cards. Place 1 person, 1 location and 1 item card secretly in an envelope - these are the whodunnit. Hide the remaining cards around the space. As girls find cards, they tick them off on their sheets. The three missing cards are the ones in the envelope, and that’s the mystery solved.
- What3Words whereabouts: give teams a 3-word location from the What3Words app. Girls can locate the spot and collect a clue with the next 3 words, which leads them to the next location. Keep going until they reach the final treasure.
- Animal tracks: Scatter animal tracks (drawn or printed) leading toward a hidden treasure and make the pawprints get physically larger the closer the girls get to the 'den.' You could have teams looking for different trails of pawprints and add in some dead ends to make it trickier.