50 Virtual Scavenger Hunt Ideas and List for 2021

Published December 09, 2020

The world around us has changed in so many ways due to the restrictions of the pandemic, but in some ways, it has opened up the opportunity for people to find new ways to connect and have fun together.

Virtual scavenger hunts have been around since the dawn of the Internet, but their popularity has exploded among those looking for ways to engage their audience remotely.

What Are Good Uses for Virtual Scavenger Hunts?

Honestly, anyone can have a good time enjoying virtual scavenger hunts. There are so many different options out there that this is a good choice for everyone from individuals to corporate professionals looking for training, icebreakers, and other fun activities for their teams.

1. Virtual Team Building Activities

2. Office and Workplace Scavenger Hunts for Employees

3. College Campus Scavenger Hunts for Students

4. Conference and Tradeshow Engagement for Attendees

5. Tourist Destinations (parks, cities, zoos, etc.) for Visitors

Thanks to the growing number of people working remotely, these kinds of team-building exercises can be a great way to help everyone stay connected and feel like part of the team. 

To help you better plan your hunt, we’ve compiled some of the most popular ideas and virtual scavenger hunt lists to help you get started.

The List: Ideas and Examples

You can pick and choose how difficult your hunt is based on the clues that you select. You can use any of the ideas here as they are, or simply use them as inspiration to create your own ideas.

Feel free to modify, add, and change these to suit your needs, and pick as many or as few as you’d like to add to your hunts.

We’ve separated them into groups of ideas for having people search in their homes and online, offering different angles to each hunt. You can also mix and match these concepts. 

Things to Find at Home

1. Pet selfies are popular as more pets become “office” pals for their human companions. 
2. Perform a TikTok dance or mimic a popular video from the site.
3. Share the view from your office window.
4. COVID-19 clues: sharing a photo of disinfecting wipes, toilet paper, or hand sanitizer.
5. Take a zoom selfie that looks like a frozen camera glitch. 
6. Show off those culinary skills-- take a picture of your breakfast or lunch, or even the frozen pizza you’re saving for later. 
7. Mug shot: Share your favorite coffee mug. 
8. Show us your smarts: Share a book from your collection that’s at least 300 pages long. 
9. Family hunt: Have employees “show and tell” something interesting with other family members. 
10. Junk removal: Show off a photo of your home’s worst “junk drawer”. 
11. Recreate an old family photo. 
12. Recreate a famous work of art or a work of art in your home. 
13. Share a photo of your office setup. Bonus points if you have work-related stuff (non-confidential) on your computer. 
14. Safety check: Show off your best mask, if you’ve got one that’s themed or otherwise. 
15. Find something from the decades: Have players find something related to the 80s, 90s, or 2000s, in their home.

Things to Find Online

1. Word hunts: You can do a word-themed hunt and have people find items that represent specific words. 
2. Photobomb: Search for the worst selfie on Google Images and share your result. 
3. Get Social: Look for the company’s profile on social media- find all the pages for a bonus. 
4. Alphabet soup: Have the players find an item based on a letter of the alphabet. This can be fun as an entire game of its own!
5. Screen sharing: Find a screenshot or screen capture on your computer or phone. Share it with everyone. The older, the better. 
6. Share your skills: Search for your job title online. Find the occupational description and share it with the group. For added fun, read over it to see how accurate it is. 
7. Find a trending Instagram hashtag. (This is great for social media training, too)
8. Hidden Gems: Task people with finding specific information, keywords, or pages on the company website. The deeper the page, the better. 
9. For the Team: Have everyone “shop” for promotional materials and see what they’d offer team members for onboarding or as a prize for the hunt. 
10. Find three TikTok profiles that make you laugh and share them with the group. 
11. Use Google Image search to find a picture of the company’s physical location (if it has one). 
12. Search for the company’s Google My Business page. Bonus points if you’ve got a suggestion for improvement. 
13. Wishlist: Make a “wish list” on your favorite online shopping site and share it with the group. It should include items that would explain your personality to people. 
14. Zoom zoom: Find three funny Zoom call glitches on YouTube. Share your favorite with the group. 
15. Rabbit Holes: Share your favorite time-wasting website with the group. 

Photo and Video Items

Although many of the items discussed can be found and shared via photo or video, here are some specific quests that only involve taking images or sharing items on the screen. 

1. Your morning routine: teeth brushing selfie, morning paper, website screenshot, social media share. 
2. A box of band-aids or first aid supplies.
3. Take a picture of all the technology within an arm’s length. 
4. Find a car charger for your phone and share a pic. 
5. Take a video of yourself reciting your job description creatively. 
6. Take a 10-second video of the weather outside at the moment and share it with the group. 
7. Holiday setup: If your hunt is happening during the holidays, you can have people share pics of their holiday decor, both indoors and out. 
8. Cleaning house: Take a photo of the various cleaning supplies in the home. Alternatively, have people share a photo or video of their least favorite chore. 
9. Google search for “tornado cat” and share the best image you can find. 
10. Search the company’s name plus the word “rainbow” and share the first image that comes up. 

Riddles

Finally, for those who prefer the riddle-style hunts and want a little inspiration, here are 10 great riddles to get you started. 

1. Sometimes I’m firm, sometimes I’m soft. I can come from the store or even from a big cardboard box. (Mattress/Bed)
2. The Internet is fun and it can be a good tool. Search high, search low, and then search Google for the coolest outdoor pool. 
3. You know who you are and you know what you do, but can you find it online and explain it to others, too? (Find a listing or description of your job)
4. On again, off again, that’s all I do. I’m not talking about relationships, I’m lighting the way for you. (Lamp)
5. If you’re planning on going out, put me on first. I’ll protect your head from the worst. (Hat/hood)
6. Round and round and round I go. Suds and duds and balled up socks, and if I’m not balanced, I’ll take a walk. (Washing machine)
7. I can be a code or a card, or even made of metal and put on a ring. Without me, you’re not getting in, that’s a sure thing! (Key)
8. Work, work, work, with no time for play. Take a picture of the screen where you spend most of your day. (Computer)
9. I’m always running and sometimes find you running behind. I have my hands on my face and nothing but time. (A clock)
10. Good morning to all and to all a goodnight. Now get online and find Santa’s favorite website. (Share your favorite online shopping platform)

How to Create Your Virtual Scavenger Hunt

For a virtual scavenger hunt, things work pretty similar to a traditional scavenger hunt except the medium for completing items is complete virtual. You'll probably want to use a scavenger hunt app like Scavify to help setup, organize, and run your hunt.

1. Set a Time

First, you’ll want to allot a certain amount of time for everyone to find the items they are hunting for.

2. Create a List

You will also need to make sure that you provide a list of clues and instructions to everyone before you start.

3. Launch and Run Your Hunt

You can set up the rules and timing however you’d like. For virtual team building scavenger hunts, you typically hunt usually last a few hours to a day. However, since everyone doesn’t need to be in the same physical place for a virtual scavenger hunt, many groups are opting to run their hunt over the course of days and weeks (and even months), adding new challenges and items to find periodically to maintain and sustain the engagement.

It’s easy to get as creative as you want, and you can do so much more with team building when you choose a unique idea like this to use your time and connect your teams.

You don’t necessarily have to give out a prize with the hunt, but that is a good way to reward and acknowledge the winner, as well as to remind everyone that participating is a great way to engage with the team and earn something in return.

Tips and Best Practices

There is a lot that you can do with a virtual scavenger hunt, but that also means that there is a lot that you can do wrong.

There’s no reason to make things more difficult, and there are some best practices that you can follow from those who came before you to help you get what you want out of this experience. Here are a few things to keep in mind. 

1. Choose Your Participants

With virtual scavenger hunts, there really is no limit to the number of participants you can have. However, different circumstances will dictate how many you should include. Think about how many people you have and how much time you want to spend, and then plan accordingly.

2. Add Variety and Creativity

Add in challenges like selfies, online searching, or performance videos to keep people interested and engaged. Try to avoid the hunt from being a giant game of “fetch”.

3. Determine the Winner

If you want to up the stakes, add points to each clue based on the level of difficulty, and then you’ll have a clear winner based on who gets the most points and finishes the soonest.

4. Mix Virtual and Physical Items

Don’t limit yourself to strictly online or physical clues-- a good mix of both will keep people engaged and make the hunt more interesting.

5. Use Turn-Key Hunts and Lists

Use pre-built lists and scavenger hunt ideas from scavenger hunt apps and companies that have experience with these types of activities. Why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to and also leverage their experience. Contact companies like Scavify to help. You’ll always be able to customize your list off these turn-key foundation lists.

The Benefits of Virtual Scavenger Hunts

While some people look at this only as a good time, the reality is that there are benefits beyond just having fun.

Especially if you’re in the market for corporate training and team-building exercises, the virtual scavenger hunt can be a great choice. It will get your employees engaged and allow them to have a little fun. Plus, it will give you the chance to show them that you can be silly and fun, too, and that the best work comes from teams that get along and can have a good time together.

Scavenger hunts also challenge people’s critical thinking and creative skills. This can be a good way to see which of your employees have the chops to take the creative reins. You’ll often find that analytical types struggle more with games like this, but it’s also a good way to get them to open up and interact with their team. It can help everyone get engaged and remember that work can also be fun, and that kind of culture is invaluable in today’s society.

Benefits:

1. Fun
2. Team Building
3. Employee and Audience Engagement
4. Social Interaction
5. Critical Thinking
6. Creativity
7. Company Culture

Where To Go From Here?

Whether you copy these clues and lists verbatim or you use them to create your own inspired hunts, you’ll be well on your way to a great team-building or icebreaker exercise in no time at all. 

Rather than build and execute your scavenger hunt from scratch, you’ll likely want to use a scavenger hunt app like Scavify to manage and automate everything for you. They can also help provide pre-built hunts that you can further customize or just set up and run effortlessly.

Enjoy and happy hunting!