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
roamli
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 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.
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.
Holiday windows, a lit-up plaza, the café around the corner. Your neighborhood at its most festive, seen together instead of from a desk.
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.
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.
“Recreate an old company photo, pose for pose. Bonus respect for matching the outfits.”
“Give the office's saddest plant a holiday makeover. Show us the before and after in one shot.”
“Write and perform a 20-second holiday jingle about your team's year.”
“How many steps from the lobby to our front door? Type the number.”
“Fit your whole crew inside one ugly sweater. Every head visible.”
“Name one thing another department did this year that made your job easier.”
“Strike the exact pose of the statue in the plaza. The whole crew, no exceptions.”
“Find the plaque on the old bank building. What year was it built?”
“Order the most seasonal drink on the menu at the corner café and toast the camera with it.”
“A crew photo with a local shop owner. Ask first, and buy something small while you're there.”
“Give us your best 20-second tour-guide pitch for this block. Enthusiasm over accuracy.”
“Find the oldest storefront sign within two blocks of the office.”
“Your whole crew reflected in a single shop window. Nobody cropped out.”
“Ask someone who works nearby for their favorite winter spot in the neighborhood. Where is it?”
“Photograph something out here that represents your team's biggest win of the year.”
“The most over-the-top holiday window on Main Street. Crew pointing at it, looking amazed.”
“Frame the whole crew in string lights. Every face lit.”
“Count the reindeer in the department store window. How many?”
“Find a wreath bigger than your tallest teammate. Prove it.”
“Twenty seconds of a carol, sung as a crew in front of the big tree.”
“Something snowman-shaped. No snow required.”
“The strangest thing for sale at the holiday market. Photograph it with the stallholder's blessing.”
“Recreate a scene from a holiday movie. The other crews should be able to guess which one.”
“Record a 20-second holiday message for a colleague who couldn't be here today.”
“Drop a new toy or a few canned goods in the donation bin at the pinned spot. Photo of the drop.”
“Write a thank-you card to someone at the front desk, in the mailroom or on the cleaning crew. Photo of the handoff.”
“Pitch us a local nonprofit your crew would give $100 to, and why. Two sentences.”
“Pay a coffee forward at the café. Show us the receipt with a big smile beside it.”
“Leave a book from your desk in a Little Free Library. Photo of it on the shelf.”
“Gloves on: pick up five pieces of litter along your walk and show us the haul.”
“What year was the company founded?”
“Unscramble the name of this year's biggest launch: [your scrambled product name].”
“Whose dog shows up most often in the team chat? First name only.”
“Recreate a moment from this year's all-hands. Props encouraged.”
“Sum up your team's year in exactly six words.”
“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.
The same challenges work at every length. What changes is the footprint, the pace and where it ends.
A fast, loud hour around the blocks near the office. Photo-heavy, a couple of trivia stops, everyone back before the 1:30 meeting.
The full experience: a neighborhood loop, a giving-back stop, festive lights at dusk and a finish line at the party venue.
Crews start from the office and finish at the venue, where the final standings go up on the screen as the first round arrives.
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.
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.
Challenges appear on every phone at once. Office warm-ups first, then out into the neighborhood.
A pinned announcement reminds crews the giving-back stops are worth the most. You can see who has read it.
Dusk hits and the festive challenges come into their own. Crews start drifting towards the venue.
The event closes on schedule. Whoever is reviewing finishes approving the last photos while crews walk to the venue.
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.
Everything to line up before the party, in one list.
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.
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.
We adapt one of our starting formats (holiday office hunt, downtown shop-local, orientation week, art walk) to your place and your people.
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.
Each answer opens the page with the full story.
Yes. With The Roamli Touch our team handles challenge writing, map design, setup and testing, with a point person through game day.
See The Roamli TouchA team hunt can come together in a few days, even in a busy December. Tell us your date and we'll make it work.
See the planning timelineSmall teams and whole companies both play in crews, and plans aren't priced by headcount. Lock Chicago runs outdoor team-building hunts for groups of 100+.
Read Lock Chicago's storyKeep a backup set with shorter outdoor legs and more office and trivia challenges. An announcement reaches every player in seconds if plans change.
See announcementsA final leaderboard for the party, and every photo and video reviewed and downloadable in one zip for the slideshow and the January all-hands.
See the recapYes. With Ready-to-Go we adapt our holiday office hunt to your place and your people, with your stops, trivia and prizes added.
See Ready-to-GoShare your date, your group and your neighborhood. We'll come back with ideas, a rough plan and a price.
A 30-minute call. We'll sketch your route and first challenges live, around your office and your party venue.