City Sleuths is a fun riddle solving activity that is Team Craft’s upgrade to a scavenger or treasure hunt as a team building activity. Teams have from four to six participants and compete to score the most points by finding answers to riddles among the curious, historic, and entertaining elements of a city district.

A 3 hour version ends after one round with scoring answers, and a short debrief. A 4 hour version includes two rounds of riddle solving and greater team learning. Winning teams receive medals or award cups and bragging rights. Everyone gets a memento of the experience.  

Riddles & Strategy
Each team is given a collection of riddles to solve. Teams are directed to a section of a city’s most entertaining or historic district to search out the answers. Figuring out each riddle leads them to a location where they’ll find a little known humorous or curious fact related to local history, famous people, or artistic or creative aspects of the location – and score points. Teams compete to score the most points.

What makes this activity so unusual and fun is that written riddles require participants to think past obvious and easy answers. Each riddle is designed to challenge assumptions and typical ways of thinking, but also uses shared knowledge of general trivia and observation to generate the answer. To be successful teams need to be creative – think outside the lines - but still follow a logical thread. First impressions are typically wrong. So teams are encouraged to involve each member in sharing observations and ideas.

The riddles cleverly cloak the identity of the street a team needs to go to, the building to look for, and the information needed there. It requires effective communication, shared problem solving, and open minds - all important elements of successful teamwork.

Experience a Great American City
We conduct this program in Austin, Las Vegas, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, and Washington.
Each of these cities has an urban district that is fun and exciting to explore on its own.
Program sites can be developed in other cities.

The program is like a speed tour of points of interest that participants experience in greater detail than most visitors. Participants discover kitschy and humorous work of artisans mixed with facts about local celebrities or historic elements of national interest.

Prior experience with the activity location is unnecessary – it can actually work to a group’s detriment if participants make too quick an assumption.

The experience debrief identifies skills that were needed to be successful and relate to teamwork in general.

City Sleuths Program Characteristics
For information about Group Size, Location, and Budgeting check the PDF fact sheet for the city of interest. (Click on a city name listed above.)

For more information about this and other Team Craft programs and services
Go to the contact page to send us an inquiry, obtain our phone number, and e-mail address.

The training staff from one company that scheduled a series of City Sleuth programs told us that when they began looking for programs around the country they had a sense of what they were looking for, but not until they participated in City Sleuths did they know that they had actually found it.

Let us solve the riddle of what program to do for your upcoming meeting. City Sleuths may well be the answer you're looking for!

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