9 Virtual Scavenger Hunt Ideas for Team Building

1. Outdoor Expedition Photo Scavenger Hunt

An outdoor expedition photo scavenger hunt is where teams take pictures of outdoor items, places or people in their local area. Participants then submit their photos to the group and the team with the most creative and interesting submissions wins! Outdoor expedition photo scavenger hunts are a great team building activity to get your team working together and exploring their surroundings.

To organize this event, start by separating your team into smaller groups, select an outdoor theme such as people, plants or architecture, and then give each team a list of items to find and take photos of in their surrounding area. Since the teams are all remote, they will need to divide and conquer the tasks amongst themselves to take all the photos. Some great ideas for photos include:

• Three different color leaves.
• A round object naturally found outside.
• Two blooming flowers.
• Buildings with interesting architecture.
• Something yellow.
• An object with words on it (i.e. trashcan, license plate, signs).
• Something a kid would play with.
• A bug with spots.
• Two flying objects.
• Five animals that live in your area that you would not want to run into.
• Four types of trees that grow in your area.
• Five animals in your area that you would be okay to encounter.
• Three things that make you smile outside.

2. A Few Of My Favorite Things

'A few of my favorite things' is a great virtual scavenger hunt to learn more about your team members. If you have a lot of new employees on your team, this scavenger hunt will serve as a great team bonding activity for the team to get to know more about each other on an intimate level.

To organize this fun game, ask your team members to each pick three favorite things (could be books, movies, places, hobbies, etc). Once everyone has chosen their three items, have them seek out pictures of those items online and then create a collage. You can have the team use social media apps like Pinterest or Instagram to post their collages.

The scavenger hunt ends when every team member has finished posting, and the winner is whoever created the most creative collage as voted by the group! A few examples of things you can include in the list for this scavenger hunt are:

• Snap and share a picture of your favorite mug.
• Share three of your most beloved ingredients in your cupboard.
• Find the cheapest place (online or in person) to purchase your favorite office snack.
• Share your favorite photo on your phone.
• Snap a picture of your favorite piece of art in your home.
• Record a short video of you making your favorite morning drink.
• Find an object in your house of your favorite color.
• Share two of your favorite objects in your kitchen.
• Share your favorite game to play individually or with teams.
• Record a short video describing your favorite book without mentioning its title.

3. Language Scavenger Hunts

This scavenger hunt is a great way to practice or learn new foreign language skills while having fun with your team members. To get started, pick a language you would like to focus on and split your team into smaller groups. Then, give each group a list of items to scavenge for on the internet in the language selected, such as words, phrases, or pictures. You can create or use this type of template for a French scavenger hunt, or this one for a Spanish scavenger hunt.

The scavenger hunt ends when each team has scoured the internet and found all of the items on the scavenger hunt list. To make it more fun, you can even have the team solve a riddle as part of a scavenger hunt clue in the language’s culture. An example in French could be:

Toujours le premier, jamais le dernier,

Rien sans lui n’est jamais fini

Car rien ne peut commencer sans lui.

Qui est-il?

(Always the first, never the last,

Nothing can finish without it

Because nothing can start without it.

What is it?)

The team who completes the scavenger hunt in the fastest amount of time, or who scavenges for the most interesting items, wins!

4. World Tour Virtual Scavenger Hunt

A world tour virtual scavenger hunt is an online game where teams have to explore the internet for creative lists of hidden items. This game can be played using popular websites such as YouTube, Google Maps, Wikipedia and more.

To organize a world tour virtual scavenger hunt, start by assigning teams and then provide each team with a list of tasks or questions that they must either answer or find pictures of online. You want to make this scavenger hunt challenging, fun and creative, but not impossible. The winning team is whichever one finds all the items or answers all the questions correctly. A world tour virtual scavenger hunt is a great way to explore the world and learn about different places, cultures, history and more.

Some great task ideas for a virtual world tour scavenger hunt include:

• A picture of an ancient monument in Egypt. You can make this more challenging by specifying a time period.
• The highest mountain peak in every continent.
• A video about a species native to a geographic region.
• The oldest living tree in the world.
• An image picture of a famous landmark in a chosen city.
• A video about an animal from the rainforest.
• Pictures of the largest 5 lakes in Africa.
• A map of the world's deserts.
• A picture of an active volcano on every continent.
• Videos of the most densely populated cities in every continent.

5.  Online Game Show Scavenger Hunt

An online game show scavenger hunt is a great way to have your team members test their knowledge and creativity. This scavenger hunt can be adapted for any type of topic, such as pop culture, geography or sports. To start, assign each team member with a list of tasks that they must answer correctly or scavenge for online. To complete the scavenger hunt each team member must answer their questions or scavenged items in front of the rest of the team. The team with the most correct answers wins!

This scavenger hunt can also be adapted to have a game-show style format where teams compete against each other and are awarded points for correct answers. You can create a scavenger hunt that incorporates trivia or general knowledge questions about a particular topic. Either way, virtual game show scavenger hunts are great way to bring some fun and competition to your team building activities.

6. Life Experiences

This scavenger hunt helps team members discover the life of their co-workers outside the office. It encourages team members to get to know each other better and learn about their hobbies, interests, and life experiences.

To start, divide team members into smaller groups of two or three people. Then, assign each group with a scavenger hunt list of things they must search for and bring back to the group. The list of items must be personal and be relatable back to the individual, but better yet, it should come with a great story to share!

Below are some great list ideas to get your team started, but this scavenger hunt works even better if the team sends you ideas of what to include:

• Share an item you have in your house (or the office) from a favorite trip you took.
• Find a picture online of your high school/college town and see if the group can guess where it is located. 
• Share a picture of you participating in your favorite hobby.
• Find a coin with the year from an important day in your life and share with the group why that day was important to you. 
• Have everyone submit a baby photo of either themselves or their children. Create a collage of all the photos and have everyone guess who the babies are! 
• Share an item from home or the office that you had at your first job.
• Gather two of your favorite books and share with the group why you chose these books.
• Find two tools you keep at home or the office, but never use.
• Share with the group one or two objects you consider lucky, and share the backstory of why.

7. Online Shopping Scavenger Hunt

An online shopping scavenger hunt is a great way to encourage team members to get creative in exploring the internet for unique items to purchase at the best deals possible. There's a lot of room for creativity with this scavenger hunt, so flex your imagination and go wild!

Start by assigning each team member a shopping list of items that they must scavenge for online. Make sure that the shopping is for unique and niche items that are not easy to find, which can include anything from unique gadgets, antiques, artwork or furniture. Assign each team member with a set budget and task them with finding the best deals for the specific list of items online.

Once the scavenger hunt list is complete, team members should come back together and share their finds with the rest of the team and how much they spent. The person who saves the most money on their purchases wins!

Some ideas for creative shopping list items include: 

• Vintage books.
• Art pieces in a specific style.
• Retro tech gadgets.
• Antique furniture from a certain period.
• Gourmet spices and condiments.
• Odd collectibles.
• Unusual furniture pieces.
• Vintage clothing from each decade.

8. Harry Potter Challenge

The Harry Potter challenge is a scavenger hunt that requires your team members to solve puzzles, create new inventions, and scavenge for items from the Harry Potter universe. This virtual scavenger hunt is fun even if your team are not specific Harry Potter fans, because everyone can creatively come up with ingredients to include in a potion, or ideas on how to jerry-rig a broom!

Divide your team into two or three groups and assign each group with a scavenger hunt list of either virtual or physical items they must find. Each scavenger hunt list should include things like codes that need to be cracked, potion ingredients scavenged for, and wands to be created. Create a timeline for when each group needs to complete the scavenger hunt and award extra points if they get it done ahead of schedule.

This scavenger hunt is great fun for everyone and is an excellent team-building exercise. Have each group report back on their scavenger hunt findings and the group with the most points at the end wins! Some ideas to include in your scavenger hunt list can be:

• Gather three ingredients from your cupboard that you would use to create a potion
• What two items in your house (or office) must you take to Hogwarts? 
• Using items in your house (or office), how would you craft a cape? 
• If you were to have a pet owl, what would it look like? Draw or find a picture online of this owl. 
• You’re at the train station but cannot figure out how to get onto Platform 9 and 3/4.  What book in your house (or office), other than Harry Potter, would you use to help you find your way?
• Find an object that you wish you had the ability to levitate.
• You’re playing in a quidditch match, but your broom is too slow to keep up. Find something that you could use to help increase your broom speed.  

9. Fall Fun Photo Challenge

This is a fun activity that you can continue with your team over a prolonged period of time. Setting up this scavenger hunt is easy, all you need to do is have the group take photos of certain items or activities in the fall season, and share them with everyone as they complete each task.

There are many options on how to set this up, one possibility is to make this a daily challenge for a week and have everyone share their pictures first thing in the morning via social media or company IM. If asking everyone to share a daily photo seems like too much, then you could change it to sharing once a week or once a month during a virtual on-screen team meeting. When sharing make sure to have everyone talk about the picture and the adventure or story behind how it came about. This is a great way to get to build relationships in a team.

Some ideas for fall photo scavenger hunt list include:

• A photo of a leaf changing colors.
• An activity that you do with friends and family during the fall season.
• A photo at a pumpkin patch.
• A picture of an apple-picking adventure.
• Photos of food items prepared using fall seasonal ingredients.
• Create art pieces with seasonal items found in nature.
• A photo of something that reminds you of your favorite fall memory.
• Photos of the changing landscape in your neighborhood as the leaves start to change color.
• A picture with a person or pet wearing an autumn-themed costume.
• Your favorite fall drink.
• A warm pie.
• Piles of leaves with kids playing in the leaves

These are just a few virtual scavenger hunt ideas that you can use for your next team building activity. With the right scavenger hunt, it can be an entertaining and enjoyable experience that helps boost morale, build relationships and promote camaraderie within the team. Whether you're looking for a fun activity for your team or a way to promote teamwork and problem-solving, a scavenger hunt is a great option. With so many different types of scavenger hunts to choose from, there's sure to be one that's perfect for your team.

Choosing the Best Virtual Scavenger Hunt for Your Team

When choosing a virtual scavenger hunt for your team, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, think about the size of your team and the amount of time you have. If you have a large team you'll probably want to break them up into smaller groups, so choose a scavenger hunt that can be completed by smaller teams. If you have a limited amount of time, you'll want to choose a scavenger hunt that can be completed in a shorter amount of time.

Second, think about whether you want a scavenger hunt that's done entirely online, or you want a hybrid version where your team connects virtually but the activities are done outdoors. For example, an outdoor expedition photo scavenger hunt allows your team to connect and coordinate with each other virtually, but they are then able to go outside and take pictures.

Finally, think about what you want your team to get out of the virtual scavenger hunt. If you're looking for a scavenger hunt that builds up usable skills, then try a language scavenger hunt. If you're looking for a scavenger hunt that's more fun, then something like the Harry Potter challenge might be a better choice. If you want your team to build stronger and more intimate relationships, then the life experiences scavenger hunt might be the way to go.

Whatever type of scavenger hunt you choose, make sure it's one that your team will get something out of and enjoy. After all, the point of a scavenger hunt is to have fun and promote teamwork!

Conclusion

A virtual scavenger hunt is a great way to promote teamwork and collaborative problem-solving. Virtual scavenger hunts have been shown to improve communication, collaboration, creative thinking, and team motivation. As more and more teams are working remotely, it is becoming more important than ever to proactively do as much as possible to build stronger team relationships.

Team building activities like virtual scavenger hunts offer a great way to accomplish this while having a lot of fun. If you're looking to organize a virtual scavenger hunt that's fun, challenging, and memorable, then just follow the steps outlined in this article and your team is sure to have a blast.

If on the other hand you want to schedule a great activity for your team but don't want to do all the planning and legwork, then let us do the work for you. In addition to virtual scavenger hunts, we offer a large selection of highly rated virtual team building events. Contact Ryptic Team Building to find out more!

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