After a recent slip on the ice caused a mild concussion, I took a short break from hiking while I was recovering but it left me a little stir crazy. I was looking for a way to stay active but without the risk of another slip on the ice and snow that covers our hiking trails in the winter. Fortunately, we found something fun to do that kept us moving for the afternoon. We headed into Portland for Operation City Quest, a digital Scavenger Hunt. Scavenger hunts are a great way to have fun in an active, engaged way.

We loved participating in the Portland Beer Week Scavenger Hunt but they haven’t held it the last few years, so I was excited when I stumbled upon this digital scavenger hunt option with Operation City Quest. While this one didn’t involve any craft beer, or bar hopping, it was a nice, family friendly way to spend a Saturday in Portland.

Not close to Portland? No problem! They have digital scavenger hunts for cities all over the country and some in Canada too. You can pick your destination from their interactive map or the listing on their website.

After registering online, you download the Goose Chase App on your phone and activate your game. The  hunt has a series of  missions each earning points from one to two hundred. As you complete each challenge, you upload a picture for confirmation and can immediately see where you are on the rankings against other teams playing the same game.

For the first two hours of the hunt, we had a digital assistant providing guidance as needed. While we didn’t end up needing any tips, our virtual guide did send periodic encouragement our way in the form of high energy texts and bitmoji images.

The hunt was specific to Portland Maine, although there were really only about ten city specific challenges along with a handful of trivia questions. There rest of the hunt categories covered more general areas such as animals, buildings, city places, jobs and food to name just a few.

Although I suspect the challenge item to submit a photo of a seagull was just a general item from the animal category, I think it could be considered Portland specific too. It is an easy item to capture in a coastal town.

There were also some creative activity challenges encouraging fun and silliness including staging an imaginary dodge ball game and a chance to show your best moonwalk. With around 140 hunt items, there are plenty of choices available to suit everyone’s comfort level.

An additional bonus of the hunt is that everything is documented through picture submissions so I am building up quite the collection of fun, creative photos from Portland. In fact, trying to take the picture in a unique, playful way was a big part of the fun of the scavenger hunt. You can see the photo submissions from the other teams too which is another cool way to virtually explore the city as you see it through another team’s lens. So far we are playing against 21 teams and we need to pick up our game since we’re towards the bottom of the pack.

The afternoon we did our Scavenger Hunt was extremely cold so after a few hours, we headed inside for some food and a little warmth. The game opened in January and stays active until the end of December which gives us plenty of time to revisit the hunt. There are menu options on the app to show you what you’ve completed, and what remains open, so it will be easy enough to jump back into the game.

There was a final section of challenge items that we didn’t get to during our hunt, but that I’m looking forward to doing the next time we play again. It prompts you for pictures of “where to go” for various things in your city such as to “quench your thirst” or “somewhere to eat”. I love the idea of picking out my favorite places in Portland and highlighting them for other participants. It goes along with the theme of my blog.

Do you like scavenger hunts? Have you gone on any interesting ones?