The Ultimate Indoor Photo Treasure Hunt

Remember last year when I made the Ultimate Backyard Photo Treasure Hunt for the boys and it was an insanely huge hit? We've re-earthed it a couple of times and I've since added some photos to it to make it more challenging. The problem is, it's 175 degrees out with 800% humidity these days and we (meaning "I") avoid spending too much time in the backyard. This leaves us with two very cranky housebound boys and one very cranky me who spends all day trying to come up with things to do - most of which are shot down instantly.

I decided to take my own advice from the Backyard Treasure Hunt and make The Ultimate Indoor Photo Treasure Hunt for the boys. I put this together in about 15 minutes and it was such a huge hit. Farmer B was home when the boys went on the hunt and was smiling ear to ear watching them tear around the house.


I set up the Treasure Hunt by going around the house and taking photos of everything I could think of. Being creative and taking pictures of items that could be moved around, such as a ride-on truck and the boys' little chairs, was definitely the way to go. I hid the ride-on truck behind some curtains and I put the Elmo chair in the front hallway. I also took some close-up photos that took the boys a minute to figure out the location of the clue.

Some other photos I took were:

Shoe basket
Underwear drawer
Toilet paper roll (they had to run to all 3 bathrooms trying to guess which one it was)
Paintings on the walls
Dog bed
Toys
Cat litter box
Vacuum cleaner
Key box
Dining room chair
Bed sheets

You get the idea. The dining room chair photo clue turned out great because I taped the next clue to the bottom of one of the chairs and since we have eight chairs this took them a few minutes of circling the table.


To set up the game, just take as many photos of things inside your house as you can. I think I took about 30 photos. I printed them out on cardstock paper, four to a page, and then cut them out. Farmer B took the boys outside while I set up the hunt. I started with a sign on the sliding glass door that told them a treasure hunt was on. The first photo clue was taped to the bottom of the note.




This photo clue was a picture of one of our barstools. The barstool with the photo clue taped to it was hidden in the hallway. When the boys found it and grabbed the clue, it sent them running to their playroom. I made sure that the clues were zigzagged around the house so there was a lot of running involved.



The final clue was on the patio hidden behind the pool boxes. It was a red bag (leftover from valentine's day) with a couple of little toys in it and two Tootsie Roll lollipops. The boys were completely overjoyed with the whole experience and said they can't wait for the next hunt. If you're stuck inside in the heat with some bored kids who aren't old enough to read real scavenger hunt clues, you've got to try this easy and fun activity. You can reuse it by changing up the order of the clues and moving some of the moveable clues to different places in the house.