Writing your own scavenger hunt riddle clues may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. With a little forethought, a little imagination, and the ability to search online, you can create your own scavenger hunt puzzles and even have fun doing them.

1. First, it’s important to get organized. Sit down and write a list of your hiding places. In a home that could be in a microwave, under a coffee table, in the bathtub, or under a bed. Outside, you can hide clues in a mailbox, under a flower pot, in a birdhouse, or somewhere on the front porch. Of course, you can be much more elaborate and organize a hunt in the city, in a park, in a community center or at a trade show. It doesn’t matter where you hunt or where your hideouts will be; just write your list. Aim for a list of 10, then continue to step 2.

2. Dictionary.com defines a riddle as “a question or statement phrased in such a way as to exercise one’s ingenuity to answer it or discover its meaning; a perplexing riddle, question, problem, or matter.”

So, to write a riddle clue, you’ll need to find a way to reference a hideout in a subtle or complex way (depending on how old your hunters are) without giving away the answer. For very young children, a clue to the location of a mailbox might be: “Find your next clue where we will pick up the mail.” That’s pretty easy. But what if you need a more difficult track for teenagers or adults?

has. Try a Google search for “mailbox riddle” and see if anything stands out. In this case, the first riddle that appears is…

“Remove my first letter and I won’t change; remove my second letter and I won’t change; remove all my remaining letters and I’ll remain unchanged. What am I?”

Does this track fit the age of your hunters? If so, you can check off a riddle from your list. If not, try the same idea with some of your other hiding places, and then move on.

b. Think of movies, popular songs, commercials, or phrases that might be associated with your hiding place, and try to write a question, poem, or statement about it.

In the case of a mailbox, the movie “The postman always rings twice” comes to mind. Whether a reference to that old movie will work for your search will again depend on the age of your entrants. In this case a clue could be…

In the past, this man may have always called twice, but now he just drops off his deliveries at the location of his next lead.

against Don’t you feel smart at all? Try this. Suppose you wanted to hide a clue in a shoe. Why not use a popular nursery rhyme or song to help you write the track? For example, “Find your next clue at the place where the old lady with too many children lived.”

If you do a Google search for “shoe songs”, the song “Footloose” will come up. Look at the words. They are the perfect inspiration for another shoe runway.

If you’re feeling free, you might want to start with one of these Sunday articles and find your next clue hidden inside.

3. Finally, if you want to give your tracks some extra flair, check out free clip art to add to tracks. Even do a rebus track or two for more variety. An eraser represents a word or phrase through the use of images. For example, the image of an apple, minus the image of a monkey, plus the image of an ant, equals the word “plant.”

The key to writing your puzzles is to think about your hiding places and what popular things can be associated with them. Then, with a little help from Google, you can have a list of fun and challenging scavenger hunt riddle clues written down before you know it.