The Amazing New York Scavenger Hunt

When I saw this Pogo event through Time Out Offers, I double checked that the PIC was in town and I signed us up! Little did I know, I wouldn't be feeling 100% and no where near good enough to run around the city on a scavenger hunt, but I did it anyway (I live on the wild side like that) and it turned out to be an awesome day! 

Their website encouraged teammates to dress up. This was not a problem for us, that's one of our favorite things! Last minute, we decided on Salt and Pepper. 

Sadly, when we got there, we were the only ones dressed up. When I spoke to one of the reps after, she said it all depends on the day. Sometimes everyone is dressed up and sometimes no one is. Luckily, we decided on a mild costume, (the original idea was multi-colored tutus. . .yes, this is considered mild for us!) so we didn't look too different AND we got extra points for it. Score! Plus, it made it a lot more fun for us; when does dressing up not make things better?!

We started by meeting up at Libations bar/restaurant on the Lower East Side. Before arriving, you were supposed to download the ScanQuest app, which is where all of our challenges came from. The event website said to bring a digital camera, but it wasn't needed. You took pictures with the app and the pictures were automatically sent to your phone's photo album. That was a really cool feature, except for a lot of the pictures, the logo was so big it covered us up. 

Once they scanned your code, you were off! You had to complete as many challenges as you could within the time allotted and be back to the bar before your time ran out. As soon as we got scanned in, we strategized. We tried to figure out the clues and where the pictures need to be taken (we had to take a picture with the signs of these locations. Both teammates had to be in all of them, which got quite tricky especially being in NYC and not willing to part with your iPhone). We decided to tackle the landmarks farthest away and work our way back downtown. The farthest being Tiffany & Co. and Ernest and Young. Just what I always wanted- a chance to run through midtown on a Saturday while recovering from a sinus infection. Luckily, I had my PIC with me and honestly, it was a lot of fun! 

Lord & Taylor

Barnes & Noble

Along the way they had a side challenge- collect business cards from 6 different frozen yogurt/ ice cream parlor or matches from 6 different restaurants. We started collecting both but ended up with all the matches first. Who knew restaurants still did this?! And PS- the matches are usually at the hostess stand, not the bar.

Random things to find: Apple & Orange

Save time: Take pictures of things you already have on the train!

Paper & Pen

There was also a "Road block" back at the bar in the middle of the adventure for a ton of points. We made our way back to Libation for the challenge which consisted of a Jenga game- we had to pick 5 pieces, which each had an activity to perform in the bar. Some of ours were acting like we won the lottery, stand on a chair and tell everyone in the bar hello, get 5 autographs, etc. Luckily, this bar seemed to have an awesome atmosphere, so it wasn't terribly disruptive (in fact, most of the people who were having brunch were still there when we finished the game- dancing in the aisles! For a $24 brunch with bottomless mimosas, this is definitely a brunch place I'd like to check out in the future). 

Off we went to get the rest of the photos. This time, we stayed close to get the rest of the challenges done. These challenges consisted of 2 things (ham&eggs, moon&stars, mickey&minnie, etc.) that had to be in the picture. Honestly, I didn't think we did too bad. It did say to get creative with our photos, and creative we got!  We missed 2 photo opportunities- Milk & Cookies, Peanut Butter & Co. in the Village but we figured we would make up for it by getting all the other ones. We headed back to the bar and waited for the winners to be announced. 

Little did we know, we won! 

That was a surprise, especially considering I was not functioning at 100%, but that just goes to show you how awesome The A Team is when we're together! We won a tshirt, a $60 gift certificate to Naked Wines, tickets to The Big Quiz Thing, The Memory Show musical, and a Quiet Show event. I'm excited to see what all these shows are about! 

A tshirt that says I'm amazing? How did they know? :)

I really enjoyed the event and would suggest it to anyone wanting to spice up a Saturday. We definitely put our knowledge of the city to good use. It was extremely helpful to know the subway system and to know different areas of town. Even though, neither of us knew much about the Lower East Side and The Village before this- we will definitely won't forget the area anytime soon!

Have you ever done a scavenger hunt through your city?