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How to Make Your Own Treasure Hunt Map

A treasure hunt using a homemade map is a great activity for a child&'s birthday party or for a special occasion. Even adults enjoy treasure hunts for situations such as marriage proposals, surprise parties and dinner parties. By varying the difficulty of the clues, you can make the hunt clearer or more devious depending on the audience. The key to a successful treasure map lies in the preparation. The more thought that goes into making a good treasure map, the more fun it will be for the treasure hunters.

Things You'll Need

Parchment paper
Coffee
Matches
Ink pen
Shovel
Treasure chest

Instructions

- 1
  Find a suitable treasure chest and objects to serve as treasure. For birthday parties, you may want to have all the guests&' party favors in the treasure chest, or for adults perhaps bottles of wine or other favors. Match the treasure to the theme or occasion for the party. Sealed containers, such as coffee cans or glass jars can work as treasure chests, as can boxes and crates.
- 2
  Bury your treasure chest in an out of the way location, or hide it somewhere concealed. If you will be burying your chest, be sure to have shovels available for the treasure seekers.
- 3
  Work backwards from the buried treasure chest and create a map for the treasure hunters, using compass directions and obscure landmarks, such as "fifty-three paces due north from the Dead Man&'s Tree." When using landmarks such as this, make sure they are obvious, in this case placing a hangman&'s noose or other dead man object in front of the tree so that there is no confusion.
- 4
  Write clues, if desired, that can pinpoint the start of the map directions. At a birthday party, you may want to have the children run back and forth across the yard or across the town to various places collecting clues before they even learn the location of the beginning of the map itself. For adult treasure hunts, these clues may be the more interesting aspect of the game, and more work can be spent on crafting harder to solve clues than for the children&'s treasure hunt.
- 5
  Stain the treasure map with coffee to make it look old and worn. Smear the coffee around on the map until it is discolored and uneven, then allow it time to dry. Burn the edges of the map with matches, and maybe even burn a hole or two in the center of the map, though not in important sections.

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