Treasure Hunt Clues & Riddles for Teens

Treasure hunts will serve as a fitting form of entertainment for pirate-themed teenage birthday celebrations. Teens can work together in teams or solo to find a treasure that you've hidden somewhere around the party venue. Several types of riddles and clues can serve as hints that will ultimately lead to a treasure.

Pop Culture Clues

Teenagers often have an obsession with the latest trends. For teenage book lovers, choose a popular book series as a clue resource. Let the teenagers use the book to guide them to where a clue is hidden. For example, you could write, "Turn to page nine, paragraph six, 13th word." and post it on the object. The word found in the book will be where the next clue is. For teen music lovers, write down lyrics to popular songs with missing words. Have them fill-in the blanks in the lyrics to guess where the next clue is.

Word Riddles

Word riddles can serve as a complicated way for teens to unlock clues leading to a treasure. Consider scrambling up clue words in complete sentences for the teenagers to guess. For an even harder approach, create a series of word decoders for the teens to guess the clues. Assign a symbol to each letter of the alphabet. Use symbols to create clue words. For example, "A" could be a happy face, "B" could be a money sign and so on. Teens will decode the symbols to reveal the clue word leading to the next object.

Photograph Clues

Photos will enable teenagers to have a slight visual of where the next clue is hidden. Take photos of each object containing a clue. To make the photos a bit difficult for a teenage group to figure out, use digital imaging software to make the photo skewed or stretched. It will take them more time to guess where the next clue is hidden. Close up photographs will also be harder for teens to figure out. For example, if a next clue is hidden in a tree, you could take a close up of one leaf.

Rhyming Riddles

Teenagers can get an idea of where the next clues in the treasure hunt are hidden with rhyming riddles. Think of several funny, rhyming poems to add some humor to the treasure hunt 1. Use characteristics of the object hiding the clue to create the rhymes. Make the riddles a little tricky and stay away from obvious characteristics of the object in order to cater to a teenage group. For example, write, "You can't open doors with my keys, care to play me if you please?" to find a clue in or near a piano.