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A holiday scavenger hunt your team will actually remember.

Skip the third identical happy hour. Send your team out in small crews to chase festive windows, trade trivia, do a little good and race a live leaderboard back to the party. Below you'll find 36 ready-to-use challenges, three formats, a sample run-of-show and a planner's checklist.

A small group points out landmarks on a busy downtown Chicago street
The Roamli player view: a numbered list of challenges with their point values
Groups of 100+ on Lock Chicago's outdoor team-building hunts

Everyone plays. Nobody gets stuck by the cheese plate.

A holiday party works when people talk to someone new. A scavenger hunt makes that the whole point: small mixed crews, a shared goal and a reason to laugh at each other's photos afterwards.

It mixes the room

Put finance, sales and the new hires on the same crew of four. By the second stop they are arguing about a trivia answer like old friends.

It gets people outside

Holiday windows, a lit-up plaza, the café around the corner. Your neighborhood at its most festive, seen together instead of from a desk.

You keep the photos

Every photo and video comes back to you, reviewed and downloadable in one zip. That's your party slideshow and your January all-hands opener, done.

Copy these straight into your hunt.

Every idea below is written the way it would appear on a player's phone. Each one asks for one of three kinds of answer: a photo, a short video, or a typed answer. Point values are suggestions; weight the effortful ones higher.

Photo Video clips up to 20 seconds Trivia checked automatically Open answer you read and approve
Around the officeA warm-up before anyone leaves the building. Set these as “no location” challenges so they can be done anywhere. 6 ideas
  • Photo10 pts

    “Recreate an old company photo, pose for pose. Bonus respect for matching the outfits.”

  • Photo15 pts

    “Give the office's saddest plant a holiday makeover. Show us the before and after in one shot.”

  • Video25 pts

    “Write and perform a 20-second holiday jingle about your team's year.”

  • Trivia10 pts

    “How many steps from the lobby to our front door? Type the number.”

  • Photo15 pts

    “Fit your whole crew inside one ugly sweater. Every head visible.”

  • Open answer20 pts

    “Name one thing another department did this year that made your job easier.”

Out in the neighborhoodPin these to real spots within a few blocks. Players see a search zone for each stop on the map and choose their own order. 9 ideas
  • Photo10 pts

    “Strike the exact pose of the statue in the plaza. The whole crew, no exceptions.”

  • Trivia15 pts

    “Find the plaque on the old bank building. What year was it built?”

  • Photo20 pts

    “Order the most seasonal drink on the menu at the corner café and toast the camera with it.”

  • Photo20 pts

    “A crew photo with a local shop owner. Ask first, and buy something small while you're there.”

  • Video25 pts

    “Give us your best 20-second tour-guide pitch for this block. Enthusiasm over accuracy.”

  • Photo10 pts

    “Find the oldest storefront sign within two blocks of the office.”

  • Photo15 pts

    “Your whole crew reflected in a single shop window. Nobody cropped out.”

  • Open answer15 pts

    “Ask someone who works nearby for their favorite winter spot in the neighborhood. Where is it?”

  • Photo15 pts

    “Photograph something out here that represents your team's biggest win of the year.”

Festive lights & holiday windowsSchedule the hunt to finish after dark. In much of the country that's before 5pm in December, which is ideal. 9 ideas
  • Photo15 pts

    “The most over-the-top holiday window on Main Street. Crew pointing at it, looking amazed.”

  • Photo10 pts

    “Frame the whole crew in string lights. Every face lit.”

  • Trivia15 pts

    “Count the reindeer in the department store window. How many?”

  • Photo10 pts

    “Find a wreath bigger than your tallest teammate. Prove it.”

  • Video30 pts

    “Twenty seconds of a carol, sung as a crew in front of the big tree.”

  • Photo10 pts

    “Something snowman-shaped. No snow required.”

  • Photo15 pts

    “The strangest thing for sale at the holiday market. Photograph it with the stallholder's blessing.”

  • Photo20 pts

    “Recreate a scene from a holiday movie. The other crews should be able to guess which one.”

  • Video20 pts

    “Record a 20-second holiday message for a colleague who couldn't be here today.”

Giving backA few stops that do some good. Give them the biggest point values so crews don't skip them. 6 ideas
  • Photo40 pts

    “Drop a new toy or a few canned goods in the donation bin at the pinned spot. Photo of the drop.”

  • Photo30 pts

    “Write a thank-you card to someone at the front desk, in the mailroom or on the cleaning crew. Photo of the handoff.”

  • Open answer20 pts

    “Pitch us a local nonprofit your crew would give $100 to, and why. Two sentences.”

  • Photo25 pts

    “Pay a coffee forward at the café. Show us the receipt with a big smile beside it.”

  • Photo20 pts

    “Leave a book from your desk in a Little Free Library. Photo of it on the shelf.”

  • Photo20 pts

    “Gloves on: pick up five pieces of litter along your walk and show us the haul.”

Company trivia & cultureThe inside jokes. Mix these in between map stops, or save them for the walk to the party. 6 ideas
  • Trivia10 pts

    “What year was the company founded?”

  • Trivia15 pts

    “Unscramble the name of this year's biggest launch: [your scrambled product name].”

  • Trivia10 pts

    “Whose dog shows up most often in the team chat? First name only.”

  • Photo15 pts

    “Recreate a moment from this year's all-hands. Props encouraged.”

  • Open answer10 pts

    “Sum up your team's year in exactly six words.”

  • Trivia10 pts

    “How many people joined the company this year? Type the number.”

How many to use? Around 12 to 15 for an hour-long hunt and 25 to 40 for an afternoon. You'll run out of daylight long before you run out of room. Pick more ideas than you need and cut the weakest after you walk the route.

Pick the one that fits your calendar.

The same challenges work at every length. What changes is the footprint, the pace and where it ends.

A player points up at a theater marquee on a Chicago street during a hunt

The lunch-break dash

A fast, loud hour around the blocks near the office. Photo-heavy, a couple of trivia stops, everyone back before the 1:30 meeting.

Duration
60 minutes
Challenges
12 to 15
Footprint
A few blocks
Crews
3 to 5 people
A small group walks past a wall of street art

The afternoon hunt

The full experience: a neighborhood loop, a giving-back stop, festive lights at dusk and a finish line at the party venue.

Duration
About 2 hours
Challenges
25 to 40
Footprint
A neighborhood
Crews
4 to 6 people
A player peeks out from behind a bronze statue during a city hunt

The party pre-game

Crews start from the office and finish at the venue, where the final standings go up on the screen as the first round arrives.

Duration
45 to 90 minutes
Challenges
10 to 20
Footprint
Office to venue
Finale
Leaderboard reveal

An afternoon hunt, minute by minute.

Here's how a two-hour hunt that ends at the holiday party typically runs. Set a start and end time on the event and Roamli handles the opening and closing for you: challenges stay hidden until kickoff, and nothing submitted after the whistle counts.

  • One captain per crew submits from their phone, and the others play along
  • Trivia answers are checked automatically; you approve the photos
  • Approve as you go, or turn on auto-approve and relax
  1. 2:30 PM10 min

    Kickoff in the lobby

    Crews meet their captain, scan the QR code and open the event. You explain the three rules: stay together, be kind to strangers, back by 4:40.

  2. 2:40 PM

    The hunt opens

    Challenges appear on every phone at once. Office warm-ups first, then out into the neighborhood.

  3. 3:30 PM

    Midpoint nudge

    A pinned announcement reminds crews the giving-back stops are worth the most. You can see who has read it.

  4. 4:20 PM

    The lights come on

    Dusk hits and the festive challenges come into their own. Crews start drifting towards the venue.

  5. 4:40 PM

    Whistle

    The event closes on schedule. Whoever is reviewing finishes approving the last photos while crews walk to the venue.

  6. 5:00 PM

    Party and podium

    The final leaderboard goes up on the screen. Prizes for the top crews unlock by rank and are redeemed at the bar. Then the photo slideshow.

The planner's checklist.

Everything to line up before the party, in one list.

Lock the basics

  • Pick the date. The week before the holidays is the one everyone skips.
  • Choose the finish-line venue and book it
  • Decide on a format and a rough area
  • Build it yourself, or ask us to build it

Build and walk it

  • Walk the area and pin your stops on the map
  • Write challenges and set point values
  • Line up prizes, ideally from a local business
  • Tell the café and shops on the route you're coming

Invite and test

  • Assign crews and a captain for each
  • Share the link, QR code and the auto-built player guide page
  • Play a few stops yourself on your own phone
  • Plan the rainy-day version (see below)

Run the show

  • Captains' phones charged, a spare power bank or two
  • Gloves, bags and blank cards for the giving-back stops
  • One person reviewing submissions, or auto-approve on
  • Laptop and screen at the venue for the finale

Hands-on or hands-off.

Most of this can be built in an afternoon in the Roamli portal. Short on time in December? Our team will build it for you.

Build it yourself

Use our builder to create, launch and monitor your event yourself. Add your challenges, set your start and end times, share one link, and you're live.

$49/mo and up
  • The full map-based builder and every game setting
  • Live onboarding training on every paid plan
  • On Creator Pro, a dedicated customer success manager and help with your event buildout
  • As many events as you want to run
See plans

Ready-to-Go

We adapt one of our starting formats (holiday office hunt, downtown shop-local, orientation week, art walk) to your place and your people.

Custom quote
  • A starting format, ready to adapt
  • Your stops, trivia and prizes added
  • Faster than a from-scratch build
Ask about Ready-to-Go

The Roamli Touch

Want our team to handle design, setup and launch? Or just some extra help and peace of mind? We design, build and run it with you.

Custom quote
  • Challenge writing and map design
  • Setup, testing and launch
  • A point person through game day
Ask about The Roamli Touch

Tell us about your party.

Share your date, your group and your neighborhood. We'll come back with ideas, a rough plan and a price.

A reply within one business dayFrom someone on our team, not a bot.
Made in ChicagoWe ran our own city-wide Scavenger Hunt Scramble right here.

Start the conversation

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Expected players

Let's plan your holiday hunt.

A 30-minute call. We'll sketch your route and first challenges live, around your office and your party venue.