Holiday Scavenger Hunts in Chicago

’Tis the season for a team-building game

Gather your friends and colleagues for a holly, jolly holiday scavenger hunt in your favorite neighborhood. Your challenge: take creative team photos and collect items that relate to the holiday season. If you’re looking for a different way to kick off your year-end celebrations, you don’t have to ask Santa: just go on this holiday scavenger hunt!

Players use our browser-based app on their phones to check off challenges, take photos, and at the end, share them with other teams. The emphasis is on teamwork and appreciation. By the finish line, even a Scrooge will be acting like it’s Christmas morning.

Your team will tackle holiday-themed challenges…

Take unusual team photos

Get creative and keep your eyes open as you explore your area and try to meet the requirements of diverse “photo op” challenges. Everyone has to get into the picture (except the person holding the camera, of course). You might need to pose while blending in with a holiday window display. Or act as if you are caroling. Or spell a season’s greeting with your bodies. Or re-create a sleigh ride, dashing through the snow.

Find or create unusual items

As in a classic scavenger hunt, you’ll have to locate or create unusual items. But in our version, you might encounter these tricky tests: Can you create and name an amazing new holiday treat by combining two unlikely foods? How about something that could create a “snow storm” for one of your photo challenges? Something you’d put in a colleagues stocking? A holiday gift that is improved by being broken? You’ll be surprised by the results that come from great teamwork.

Crack a code to decipher a mystery message

Your hunt materials will include a strangely coded holiday message. What the heck does it say? To crack the code, you’ll need to solve crafty, fun puzzles, involving a trivia questions and festive holiday season music. Can you piece together the key that unlocks the mystery message?

Locate the Hunt Host for a surprise bonus challenge

At a designated spot in the hunt area, the Host will be waiting for you, ready to spring a tricky, humorous holiday-themed puzzle for you to ponder. It might involve celebrities who have played Santa or the Grinch or Scrooge…

This game can be played in almost any outdoor location. A Kids Edition is also available. Contact us to learn more about this holiday scavenger hunt—and find more fun!

Deck the Hall with Rounds of Challenges!

Prepare for a game that has more surprises in it than Santa has toys on his sleigh. (Don’t tell him we said that.) This is a team-building activity that pleases full-throated carolers and grumbling Grinches alike. In multiple rounds, teams will gather around the virtual yule log on Zoom—or gather together in person—to answer humorous questions that cover a wide range of holiday themes.

You might tackle such topics as tricky lyrics from seasonal songs; a holiday movie mashup; celebrities with festive connections to the holidays; celebrations and foods from around the world; and other entertaining fact-snacks about Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, Boxing Day, and of course Festivus. Plus there’s a photo scavenger hunt round, to get teams to use their egg-noggins. Also: no more puns like that one.

Our host/emcee will guide your group through the rounds and keep the good cheer flowing, whether they are leading the game via Zoom or in person, in a location you choose.

Incidentally, don’t miss our other virtual holiday games, such as Joy Around the World: Virtual Holiday Scavenger Hunts.

What happy clients are saying about the holiday trivia games

A 5-star review on Google: “The event was fabulous, especially with the need to be virtual. Jamie, our facilitator, was fun, energetic and helpful; and the response time during both the sales process and the actual game event was great. I felt supported every step of the way.”

“It’s a nice and fun way to interact with coworkers when you are remote.” —a player

Contact us to learn more about a virtual or in-person holiday trivia game—and find more fun this holiday season wherever you are!

Can you stop a disgruntled game designer from ruining the holiday season?

Millions of people around the world might not get the games on their wish list—and it’s not due to supply line problems or materials shortages. It’s much more diabolical: Someone who goes by the alias SCROOGE has somehow shut down all of the equipment at companies that make games.

Scrooge has dared authorities to expose his or her identity by playing a game that involves a series of devilishly difficult puzzles that are all based on classic board games.

This is where you come in: Can your team crack up to 10 puzzles inspired by classic games—with humorous twists—and come up with the code words that will get the manufacturers humming again? You have one hour. After that…who knows what else Scrooge might do?

This virtual mystery game comes in three versions: the Classic Edition, the Expert Edition (with the most difficult puzzles), and the International Edition (with easier language for players whose first language is not English).

Are you up for an exciting, fun virtual holiday game—with lots of laughs along the way?

What are players saying about the virtual holidays game?

A 5-star review on Google: “I reached out to arrange a virtual mystery game less than a week before the event date. Tara responded promptly and walked me through the various choices for our team’s virtual celebration. Everything came together quickly and Don hosted a one-hour long challenge for our team that resulted in 3 out of our 4 teams answering all the questions correctly. A quick tie-breaker decided the ultimate victor. Thanks to Tara and everyone at Watson Adventures Scavenger Hunts!”

Contact us to learn more about the Puzzled for the Holidays Virtual Mystery Game—and find more fun for teams online this season!

Deck the Hall with Rounds of Challenges!

Prepare for a game that has more surprises in it than Santa has toys on his sleigh. (Don’t tell him we said that.) This is a team-building activity that pleases full-throated carolers and grumbling Grinches alike. In multiple rounds, teams will gather around the virtual yule log on Zoom—or gather together in person—to answer humorous questions that cover a wide range of holiday themes.

You might tackle such topics as tricky lyrics from seasonal songs; a holiday movie mashup; celebrities with festive connections to the holidays; celebrations and foods from around the world; and other entertaining fact-snacks about Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, Boxing Day, and of course Festivus. Plus there’s a photo scavenger hunt round, to get teams to use their egg-noggins. Also: no more puns like that one.

Our host/emcee will guide your group through the rounds and keep the good cheer flowing, whether they are leading the game via Zoom or in person, in a location you choose.

Incidentally, don’t miss our other virtual holiday games, such as Joy Around the World: Virtual Holiday Scavenger Hunts.

What happy clients are saying about the holiday trivia games

A 5-star review on Google: “The event was fabulous, especially with the need to be virtual. Jamie, our facilitator, was fun, energetic and helpful; and the response time during both the sales process and the actual game event was great. I felt supported every step of the way.”

“It’s a nice and fun way to interact with coworkers when you are remote.” —a player

Contact us to learn more about a virtual or in-person holiday trivia game—and find more fun this holiday season wherever you are!

Ring in the new year with fun!

Should old acquaintance with 2024 be forgot? ABSOLUTELY! These virtual team trivia games will help you do that with five rounds of questions and challenges that test your teamwork as much as your knowledge. You’ll meet with our Host on Zoom or Google Meet or your favorite conferencing platform. In teams, you’ll head into breakout rooms to tackle questions presented in our browser-based app. The questions prompt discussion that lets you tease out the answers—as well as laughter.

Along the way, you might be quizzed on…

• Unusual New Year’s traditions around the world
• Classic pop culture making a return in 2025
• Songs about celebrating and looking forward
• Surprising stuff that happened 100 years ago

…and more. Plus there’ll be a photo scavenger hunt round, where you’ll need to find things in your home or office or collaborate with teammates to make an unusual “Brady Bunch” style team photo on your Zoom screen.

This virtual team-building trivia game is perfect for bringing together colleagues to collaborate on a fun activity that fosters bonding while defeating Zoom fatigue. Not only will the game delight your group, its positive impact will echo in your future meetings. Contact us to prepare for a joyful hour that starts the new year right!

Need some good news?

Let’s not forget to look at all that’s right about the world and our history. This gratitude scavenger hunt combs the internet in search of the many people, places, and moments for which we can be grateful. It’s a virtual appreciation game you play on teams, so you’ll also come away with a better appreciation for your colleagues. You’ll follow clues to discover websites around the world that celebrate natural wonders and pioneering people who have given amazing gifts to us all in discoveries and inventions, music, food, art, education, humor, and a cornucopia of other areas of achievement.

You’ll be thankful about such things as…

• The wonders of the human heart, as you go through a giant one at the Franklin Institute
• The advances in everyday food, glorious food, as reflected through the mischievous eyes of Andy Warhol
• The amazing sculpting powers of water at the Iguazu Falls in South America
• Marvels of transportation, a Space Shuttle at the Air & Space Museum or fun model trains at Chicago’s Museum of Science & Industry
• Miracles of nature such as chimpanzees and the species-saving arks that are zoos
• Heroes and pioneers such as Marie Curie, Rosa Parks, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, and Lin-Manuel Miranda

…and much more. There’s also a bonus challenge featuring Americans who lead by example in their work for charities and worthy causes. By the end of this appreciation game, you’ll certainly be thankful you played.

A Kids Edition and an International/ESL Edition are also available. Contact us to learn more.

Put more ho-ho-ho in your holiday party

Can’t commune with your colleagues for a big holiday party? This December, gather your group around the Zoom yule log to play one of our fun, fascinating, fast-paced, and definitely festive virtual holiday scavenger hunts. On teams, you’ll use our desktop app to explore websites around the world that reveal holiday traditions, scenic places, and pop culture favorites. Your quest: answers to tricky, humorous questions. You’ll feel like you’re sight-seeing from Santa’s sleigh.

Highlights include…

• A virtual visit to Charles Dickens’ house in London in search of Scrooge
• A panoramic view of the actual, geographic North Pole
• A look around the Vienna Christmas Market
• A snow-topped pagoda in Japan, where Christmas is celebrated with chicken from KFC
• Festivals in such places as Budapest, Strasbourg, Krakow, and beyond

Of course these are more than just online Christmas games: Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, the Winter Solstice, and even Festivus are also in the mix. But even if you’re allergic to tinsel you’ll have fun. We’ll make the list of fun websites and questions; you just have to check it twice.

A Kids Edition is also available, perfect for family gatherings and online classroom games. For adults, you might also consider the ’Tis the Season for a Virtual Holiday Game.

This game is available to the general public on select weekends. To learn about booking a private game for your group, clock on the button below to contact us, and we’ll throw in tidings of good cheer.

Better than banging a gardooka

If your holiday plans don’t include frolicking with friends like all the Whos down in Whoville (with their blumbloopas and tartookas), we’ve got the next best thing: a gathering on Zoom to sleigh ride across the internet. These virtual holiday scavenger hunts for kids take you to amazing websites in search of answers to fun, funny questions.

On teams you’ll meet our host on Zoom, then head into breakout rooms and use our desktop app to access our carefully collected and inspected array of amazing museums, holiday markets, panoramic photos of exotic places, and other eye-popping online wonders. Your mission: come up with answers to tricky, humorous questions about the cool stuff you find. You’ll feel like you’re sight-seeing from Santa’s sleigh.

Highlights include…

• A virtual visit to Charles Dickens’ house in London in search of Scrooge
• A panoramic view of the actual, geographic North Pole
• Unusual toys from museums and shops around the world
• Festivals in such places as Budapest, Strasbourg, Krakow, and Santa Clause Village in Finland

Of course these are more than just online Christmas games: Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and the Winter Solstice are also featured. But even if you’re allergic to tinsel you’ll have fun.

This is a great school activity, introducing students to places and traditions around the world. But it’s also a fun game to unite families and friends, such as on our weekend hunts for the general public. Just tap one of those Santa-coat-red buttons below to learn more or buy a ticket. Guaranteed to delight any Grinch!