Mall Scavenger Hunt Rules

When you’re planning a scavenger hunt for kids or youth groups in public, it’s important for them to know in advance your expectations for their behavior.

To help you with this, here are 10 mall scavenger hunt rules that should be followed:

1. Mall Call – This first one’s actually for you! If you’re going to be taking a group of kids or young people to the mall, give them a phone call first.

The reason for this is that some malls will have rules about whether activities like this can be played there, or they might have certain rules about taking photos that would mean a photo scavenger hunt wouldn’t be able to go ahead.

Most malls will be fine with your plans though, so long as the kids are behaving themselves and follow the rest of these rules.

2. Name The Time & The Place – Before they head out into the mall, make sure that everybody knows what time the scavenger hunt is due to end and where they should meet. As a general rule, the food court tends to be the best place to gather at the end, although your mall may have a better location.

It’s also best to have an adult waiting in the food court the entire time – you can then advise players that if they lose the rest of their group, they should head to the meeting place.

3. On Time – Following on from the second suggestion, encourage the youth to arrive on time at the end by advising them that there’s a 1 point penalty for every minute that a player (or team) is late.

4. Come Together – Also following on from the second suggestion – if playing in teams, players need to stay together as one group and not go off doing their own thing to save time. This isn’t just so that players don’t get lost – scavenger hunts are a great opportunity for team building, an opportunity that will be missed if they’re not together.

5. Respect Your Elders – If you’re going to have a parent or youth leader with each team, remind the players that they need to respect what they say and follow any instructions that they’re given. (n.b. if you weren’t planning on having an adult with each group of young people, we can recommend having one – especially with youth groups – as it provides a good opportunity for relationship building.)

6. Walking And Talking – Not running and shouting.

7. Quite Polite – Many of our mall scavenger hunt ideas require players to get members of the public, store workers or security guards to get involved. When doing this, they should ask politely.

8. If No, Then Go – Following on from the previous rule – if the person says no, players should respect their answer, not be rude, then try somebody else.

9. Get Real: Don’t Steal – None of our ideas require players to actually collect items – all of them involve performing tasks or taking photos of items. If you do organize a mall scavenger hunt though where players have to physically collect items, ensure that you emphasize that none of the items should be stolen. This might be obvious, but it’s worth mentioning anyway.

10. Have Fun But Don’t Run – Even if the kids are well behaved, they may still have a security guard come up to them to ask what’s going on, especially if they don’t have an adult with them. If this happens, the young people should make sure they stop and explain what they’re doing, not run.

Now that they know the rules, it’s time for the mall scavenger hunt! Check out all of our ideas below for inspiration – all of these have free printable lists for you to use: