No more wondering about where the infamous gangsters got wacked and what restaurants Jimmy Hoffa frequented to discuss mafia hits in New York's Little Italy, cleverly planned a scavenger hunts around these fun, historical events and spots, where all the members of the group pitch in and get their kicks finding fun facts together, are an increasingly popular method of bringing people together, whether those people are a family or corporation.



Companies now specialize in creating hunts for anyone and anywhere. They are not "lame" fact finding trivia gathering scavenger hunts, but engaging and involved teamwork-driven adventures that open the eyes to cool historical facts and landmarks.

Public Hunt

The themes and location of the hunt vary, but companies will often post available hunts and adventures on their website where you can usually buy tickets. The public would buy tickets prior to meeting for the scavenger hunt. The attendees are grouped together not much larger than six people each. Each group competes to find answers to 20 or so riddled and pun-like questions given in a set of clue sheets provided by the scavenger hunt emcee. The fastest group to find the answers will win.

Public scavenger hunts are mainly hosted in Major Cities: New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Although the hunts are a little more geared toward adults, there are still family oriented scavenger hunts like New York Bronx Zoo's "The Wild Wildlife Scavenger Hunt" and the "Art Attack Family Scavenger Hunt" in L.A's Getty Museum. To contrast with family night, PG-13 rated scavenger hunts are available as well, such as the Getty's Nude art pieces with puzzler questions around them.

Private Hunt

The fresh way of starting the next company team building meeting is to have a scavenger hunt. With the private hunt you can call the shots; selecting the place, the group setting, where to go out for drinks later and even throw in some scavenger questions pertaining to the company. It's a good way to get groups to work together, notice each other's strengths and have a few laughs on the way.

In addition to a standard scavenger hunt, other options some companies offer include photo questions, where teammates are given a Polaroid camera to take group photo answers for their questions. Another more luxurious option are Limousine hunts. Attendees are chauffeured around town to every question destination. The scope of the game becomes that much grander.

Whatever your reason for taking on a scavenger hunt, you'll find that modern-day hunts are far more sophisticated -- and fun -- than what you might remember from your days trying to get into a college fraternity or sorority.