I am a big fan of a mystery tour and have done a few in London, as an adult, but taking my children where we live locally to have an adventure and learn something about where we live and where I work is a new thing.
Treasure Trails offer brilliant self guided tours of local areas.
They write self-guided themed Treasure Hunts around different villages, towns and cities across the UK. The Trails are designed to get locals and visitors out and about exploring somewhere new, or seeing somewhere they have lived all their life in a new way.
The Trails are small booklets, but within them is a big adventure. The Treasure Trail experience was designed primarily for families, with kids from the ages of 6 upwards, but we have had thousands of adults (as old as 92) doing the Trails without a child in sight – we like to say that they bring out the big kid in everyone!
The Trails take, on average, around 2 hours to complete, and are themed as a Murder Mystery, Spy Mission or Treasure Hunt. By solving the clues we have written, you will either be discovering whodunit, cracking the code, or finding the location of the long lost treasure. The Trails will normally have around 20-25 clues, the answers of which are found within the area you are exploring; it could be the name on an information board which helps you learn about the local history, the date on a memorial, or the numbers on a drain hole cover – you really will be looking high and low.
We had a lot of fun exploring our local town. I work in Kingston and I am very fond of it as a place and it seemed like the perfect spot to try a mystery tour, and learn something about the town and it’s history and also have some fun.
The tour is self guided and you take it at your own pace and it’s a great thing to do if you want to get to know an area or if you live somewhere and want to explore a bit more. It’s a fun way to combine history with learning and also some mystery fun and exploring. It’s also quite surprising what you learn about a place that you didn’t know. The tours are well researched and whilst some bits do need you to use your brain and think a bit, they are a brilliant way to spend some time out and about.
We learned some things we didn’t know about where I work and spend a fair bit of time, and found some fascinating little spots.
The tour booklet comes with a section that you fill in, as you find your answers when you have tracked down the clues, and then at the end you submit them. We got ALMOST all of ours and guessed correctly on one or two, and it seems that Mum is rather good at hunting down and finding things. (Aren’t all mums? It’s what we do!) and we were very tired but triumphant at the end.
These would make a fun gift for someone who likes walking or exploring or has just moved to a new place and they cover a wide range of places so you have lots of options. If you love a mystery tour and a walk then these are ideal.
We are looking forward to doing our next tour and seeing what we will find and where it will take us!