Mix things up this Halloween by trying one of these Halloween treasure hunt ideas! There’s everything from hiding and finding actual Halloween treasure to racing to be the first one to solve Halloween riddles to win treasure for first place!
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We’ve done scavenger hunts with my boys (and our neighborhood friends) for most holidays for I can’t even remember how long. They’re kind of my favorite if you couldn’t tell already by the over 50 scavenger hunt ideas I’ve shared.
I thought it’d be fun to mix things up this year with some different Halloween treasure hunt ideas, so this post includes five totally different options for doing some sort of Halloween treasure hunt, another name for scavenger hunt in my house!
There are printable options, text options (great for teens), neighborhood options, and even an adult scavenger hunt race that will have adults racing against each other to solve Halloween themed riddles on their list! It’s so fun, I may just have to plan a Halloween party just to play!
Halloween Treasure Hunt Race
One of the things I get asked for a lot are scavenger hunts for adults, so this year I thought it’d be fun to make a Halloween scavenger hunt designed for teens and adults with trickier clues AND a racing aspect so instead of just figuring out the clues, you have to figure them out and find them the fastest.
Here’s how it works. Players will get a sheet of 12 clues that lead to locations that are in pretty much all houses (e.g., oven, master bedroom, front door). Before the hunt, you’ll hide envelopes in those locations with designated letters for each spot.
When you say go, they have to solve the riddles on the Halloween scavenger hunt and go to each of those places to collect a letter.
Once they have all of the letters, it will spell out a word and you can either do whoever completes it fastest wins a prize or anyone who completes it successfully can pick something out of the Halloween treasure box.
What makes this great for teens and adults? All of the clues are written using lyrics from popular Halloween songs and to complete them, you have to fill in the blanks. I recommend doing it without phones if people can but if they can’t, my next recommendation would be to let people use music apps (like Apple Music, Spotify, etc.)
Adult Halloween Scavenger Hunt
If you’d rather just use the Halloween song scavenger hunt clues, I’ve turned them into clue cards you can download at the bottom of this post. The PDF will come with not only the printout seen above but also the same clues in clue card form (seen right below this). That way you can do a standard scavenger hunt with the Halloween song lyrics instead of a race if you’d prefer!
If you want to go this route, you’ll just hide the clues in their corresponding places and let whoever is playing follow the clues to a Halloween treasure at the end!
Neighborhood Halloween Treasure Hunt
This is something we came up to do with our neighbors a few years ago instead of handing out boo baskets. The basic idea is that everyone hides a Halloween treasure of some sort in the neighborhood (or another common area), sends clues to the group, and everyone tries to find the treasure.
This one actually works really well for teens (or adults) because you can send the clues via text and have them searching truly throughout a larger neighborhood, not just on a street! It’s one of the most fun Halloween activities once they’re done with trick or treating!
- Get group of people together who want to participate. The best is at least four different families, that will each hide a treasure to find. You could also just do it with two but multiple treasures makes this more fun for sure.
- Everyone makes a treasure box or container of some sort and fills it with Halloween treasure (candy, toys, trinkets, prizes, etc.), making sure there is enough for everyone participating in the treasure hunt.
- Choose a day for your treasure hunt that everyone can participate, then everyone hides their treasure somewhere in the neighborhood on the designated morning so they’re all hidden and ready for hunting.
- Write a clue or take a picture (like we did in our picture Easter egg hunt) that leads to the treasure. You can do a word based clue (like in our Halloween scavenger hunt), GPS coordinates, or a picture that is a hint without being a giveaway!
- Everyone sends a clue (via text or leave it somewhere to find like on a porch) about where their treasure hunt is hidden and the hunt throughout the neighborhood is on!
- When you find a treasure box, take one treasure and leave the rest for other people in the group to find!
Tip!
If you don’t want everyone searching for the same treasure at the same time, you could have family 1 send their clue to family 2, family 2 send theirs to family 3, and so on. Then once those treasures are found, do the next round where family 1 sends to 3, 2 sends to 4, etc. Or just send them all at the same time and search for all the treasures at the same time!
Halloween Group Text Treasure Hunt
In this game, a group text or group chat is formed and items are texted out on the group chat for people to find. First one to find it wins a point! And the person who finds the most wins the treasure at the end!
This one is really fun because you could do it throughout the Halloween season and no one will know when the items are being asked for – you just have to jump in when you see the text come through! And I’ve created a Halloween scavenger hunt list for you to use that you can download at the bottom of this post as well.
Just fill out the pink form and you’ll receive a link to all of the printables from this post.
Here’s how to do this Halloween treasure hunt!
- Create a group chat, message group, or whatever else you want to use to “play.” This is a fun one for extended family group chat, friend groups, and more!
- Explain to everyone that you’ll be sending out items to find throughout the day (or Halloween season) and the first one to respond with a picture of the item, or something that could be interpreted as the item, will win the point!
- Then whenever you want, send out a word and people have to quickly respond with a picture of whatever it is to win the point. You can do one an hour, one a day, all of them at once – whatever makes the most sense to you and your group! You could even just do this at a party where you split into groups and send out the texts to everyone at the party at once!
- Keep going with your entire list and whoever ends up with the most points at the end wins a treasure or prize of some sort! Or you could even hide the treasure somewhere and the two people with the highest points could have to race to see who finds it first!
Additional Rules
- Pictures must be taken after the word was sent out – no scrolling back through photos to find something old in your photo album.
- Pictures must be taken by yourself, not something you download from the internet or social media.
- Pictures shouldn’t need an explanation. Like when I sent out the word witch to my family and my husband sent back a selfie of himself. Doesn’t count since a stranger would have no idea what the picture represented and definitely wouldn’t think oh witch.
- You cannot use the same picture twice. So for instance, you can’t use a photo of a fireplace for both the words “fireplace” and “pile of leaves” if there is a pile of leaves inside.
- Pictures must be of the actual word, not a photo in a book, in a movie, on your phone, etc.
Things don’t necessarily have to be real and they can be interpretive – they just have to actually make sense. For example, if you send the phrase black cat, someone could send back a picture of a live black cat or even a stuffed one, but not a picture of a black cat in a book or a photo from Google images on their phone.
Halloween Scavenger Hunt
Want a standard Halloween treasure hunt where you hide clues and the clues lead to a treasure? We have one of those too! This Halloween scavenger hunt has three sets of Halloween themed treasure hunt clues you can use!
Halloween Decorations Hunt
While not technically a treasure hunt, this Halloween decorations hunt is a fun one too where you have to see how many of the items on the list you can find while exploring your neighborhood. It’s like a Christmas lights scavenger hunt but with Halloween decorations instead!
Looking for more Halloween Games?
Halloween Treasure Hunt Prize Ideas
The most fun part a Halloween treasure is always coming up with fun things to put in my treasure box. Since this one is Halloween themed, you could do any of these Halloween party favors. Or you could just do treats, but I’d avoid candy since everyone gets so much candy already. Maybe try one of these Halloween party snacks that are perfect for sharing with big groups.
If you’ve doing bags for the entire family to share, you could do some candy and then add in something fun like this Werewolf Game or any of these Halloween items that kids will love.
Download the Halloween Treasure Hunts
Enter your first name and email address in the form below to get a PDF that will have links to all of the Halloween treasure hunts mentioned in this post. That’ll include:
- Halloween song lyric scavenger hunt (the full sheet + clue versions)
- Text Halloween scavenger hunt list and scorecard
- Halloween scavenger hunt
- Halloween neighborhood scavenger hunt
If you’d prefer to not provide your email address, you can purchase a copy of my Halloween scavenger hunt bundle in my shop here with all of the items included.
If you don’t see the form below, click here to get to it.
If you do not see the email with the link to the scavenger hunts immediately after you fill out the form, make sure to check your promotions, spam, and junk folders
More Halloween Activities for Groups
Don’t just stop at the Halloween treasure hunt! These Halloween games are perfect to go with your hunt!
- Halloween family feud – the best Halloween game for families or groups!
- Halloween charades – a classic for a reason!
- Ghoulish Recall – see how many things you can recall from not so spooky scenes!
- Halloween Jeopardy – a Halloween inspired of the popular game show!
- Fun Halloween games for teams – this tournament of terror activity has TONS of hilarious Halloween themed games!
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