Monthly Archives: December 2013

Why Treasure Hunts Are So Popular

Whether you call a treasure hunts a treasure hunt, a scavenger hunts, a rally, a clue trail, a quest, it doesn’t really matter – the point is that they are all versions of the same thing – a game and an event  in which individuals or teams have to solve clues, resolve puzzles, read maps, find locations, and retrieve items all whilst whizzing around a city or country location.

The great thing is that no matter how well you know a city, a town or in fact any location – there’s always something  new and exciting to discover.

The rationale and reason why people love treasure hunts is exactly the same as it is for the good old fashioned pub quiz.  People love quizzes because we all  like to be a little competitive, we like to learn, we like to have fun and we like to show our friends and colleagues how much general knowledge we know.

There’s also an almost sadistic pleasure in the fun and frustration of trying to work out the answers to questions or riddles we think we know, we think we should know but we can’t quite be sure that we do know.

Another reason why Treasure Hunts are so popular is because they are simple and straightforward in concept – yet can be made to be as complex as required and can easily be tailored to specific themes,

For some treasure hunts are simply an exciting way to get to know a new location (perhaps a conference location or meeting venue).  For others – they are a superb and light touch way of helping teams get to know each other and have some fun whilst actually learning a lot about each other and how to work together.

Then of course there’s the ‘why the hell not’ or  ‘just for the hell of it’ brigade- who host treasure hunts, car rallies etc for fun.

It’s not surprising that  Geo-Cacheing (a version of treasure hunting using sat nav technology, map co-ordinates and hidden tokens) has become such a huge global phenomena.

So – what ever the reason – get out there and have some fun with a treasure hunt of your choosing.