Free scavenger hunt clue generator, and how to make your own

Your own scavenger hunt maker, ready for Christmas morning

You'll describe the clue maker to a free AI assistant, paste what it writes into a file, and open it in your browser. Then turn the clues into a trail, add printable cards and festive designs, one step at a time.

• Tick boxes for the places you'll hide things, and age buttons from little ones to grown-ups
• A built-in bank of rhyming riddles, with new wording at the press of a button
• A trail where every clue leads to the next hidden card, and the last one to the prize
• Clues you can shuffle, reorder and rewrite before you print
• Cut-out clue cards, six to a page, with small print saying where each one goes
• A cheat sheet for the grown-up, and themes for Christmas, birthdays, Easter, the garden and the classroom

Good for: parents and grandparents planning a Christmas-morning present hunt, birthday parties, rainy-day treasure hunts, and teachers who want a classroom quest without buying a pack of cards.

What you need

Build it in six steps

Step 1 gives you a simple version that works, and each step after it adds more. The demo at the top of this page is roughly what you'll have once you've done every step. Yours will look a bit different, because the AI writes its own version each time.

1. Ask for a simple clue maker

   Copy this prompt into your AI assistant:

   Copy this promptCopy

   I don't know how to code. Please make me a scavenger hunt clue maker that runs in a web browser, so I can set up a treasure hunt for children at home.
   
   Requirements:
   - ONE single HTML file (HTML, CSS and JavaScript together), no external libraries, no internet needed. I will save it and double-click it.
   - A list of about 20 common hiding places around a home, as tick boxes: the fridge, the oven door, the washing machine, under the bed, under a pillow, the bath, the bookshelf, the sofa cushions, inside a shoe, a coat pocket, the sock drawer, the toy box, the clock, the mirror, the doormat, the letterbox, the stairs, the Christmas tree and the stocking.
   - Three age buttons: "4 to 6" (short two-line rhymes with easy words), "7 to 10" (four-line rhyming riddles) and "Older kids and adults" (trickier riddles with some wordplay).
   - Write a built-in bank of riddles yourself: at least two for every place and every age. Each riddle describes the place without saying its name, and it rhymes. Do NOT use any AI or online service to write them while the page is running.
   - When I press "Make my clues", show a numbered list of clues for the places I've ticked, with the answer under each one in small grey writing.
   - Tick a few places to start with, so I can see it working straight away.
   
   Please give me the complete file in one code block, then tell me in simple steps how to save and open it.

   Copy the code, paste it into your text editor, and save it as scavenger-hunt.html. Double-click it, tick a few places and press the button.

2. Turn the clues into a trail

   A scavenger hunt is a chain: each clue sends the hunter to the place where the next clue is hidden, until the last one leads to the prize. This step makes the maker keep track of that for you.

   Copy this promptCopy

   That works, thank you. Now please turn the list into a proper trail:
   - Put the ticked places in an order. Clue 1 is handed to the hunter at the start. Each clue leads to a place, and the NEXT clue card is hidden in that place. The last clue leads to the place where the prize is hidden.
   - Show each clue as a row that says, for example, "Clue 2 leads to the fridge", with small print underneath saying "Card 2 is hidden at the washing machine", so I can see the chain.
   - A star button on each row, "Hide the prize here", that moves that place to the end of the trail.
   - A "Shuffle order" button that mixes up the order but keeps the prize place last, plus up and down arrows to move a clue.
   - A "New wording" button on each row that swaps in a different riddle for that place. Let me click into any clue and type over the words, and keep my changes when I shuffle.
   
   Send me the complete updated file.

   Always ask for the complete file. Replace everything in scavenger-hunt.html, save, and refresh the tab (F5 or Cmd+R).

3. Print clue cards and a cheat sheet

   Now for the part you'll use on the day: cards to cut out and hide, and a list for you, so you know where everything goes.

   Copy this promptCopy

   Please add printable clue cards:
   - A "Print" button. When printing, show ONLY the cards, with no buttons or form. Use @page with margin 0.
   - Six cards on each page, in two columns and three rows, with dashed lines to cut along. Draw each page at real paper size in millimetres, and add a choice of "A4" or "US Letter".
   - Each card has a big "Clue 1" heading, the riddle in large, clear writing, and small print at the bottom for the grown-up, such as "Card 3 of 8 · Hide this at: the fridge". Card 1 says "Give this one to the hunter to start".
   - A card must never be split across two pages. If a riddle is too long for its card, shrink its text a little at a time until it fits.
   - After the cards, one more page: a "Grown-up's cheat sheet" with a table of each card, where to hide it and where its clue leads, a tick box for each one, and the prize at the bottom.
   - Show a small preview of the pages on screen, and a "Save as PDF" button that shows a short tip about choosing "Save as PDF" as the printer.
   
   Send me the complete updated file.

   Test one page first. Print the first page on plain paper and check the cards line up before you print the rest.

4. Add themes, starting with Christmas

   Christmas morning is the big one: a trail of clues that ends at the main present. A theme changes the look of the cards and the words on the first and last card.

   Copy this promptCopy

   Please add six themes I can pick with buttons that show a tiny preview of each. Draw all the decorations with CSS and inline SVG, with no image files:
   1. "Christmas presents": a red, white and green candy-cane border, a sprig of holly in the corner and a snowflake. Card 1 starts "Merry Christmas! Santa has hidden your present and left a trail of clues to find it."
   2. "Birthday": a row of bunting along the top, confetti dots and a balloon.
   3. "Indoor, any day": a detective's case file on brown paper, with a magnifying glass and the heading stamped like "CLUE 3".
   4. "Outdoor and garden": a sun, a leaf and grass along the bottom.
   5. "Easter": pastel eggs and a pair of bunny ears.
   6. "Classroom": a lined exercise-book page with a red margin, punched holes, a pencil and a gold star sticker.
   - When I choose a theme, tick a sensible set of hiding places for it (but only if I haven't changed them myself).
   - An optional box for the hunter's name, used on the first card.
   - An optional "You found it!" card to leave with the prize, with a message to match the theme.
   Keep the cards easy to read, and not too heavy on printer ink.
   
   Send me the complete updated file.

5. More riddles, and your own hiding places

   Every house is different, so add more places, more ways of saying each riddle, and a box for places only your family has.

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   Please give it more riddles and more places:
   - Add these hiding places: microwave, dishwasher, toilet lid, toothbrush pot, TV, wardrobe, laundry basket, biscuit tin, fruit bowl, advent calendar, shed, trampoline, swing, flower pot, bird feeder, wheelbarrow, garden hose, wheelie bin, a big tree, teacher's desk, whiteboard, book corner, pencil pot, coat pegs and computer. Group them under headings: "Around the house", "Christmas", "Garden and outdoors" and "Classroom".
   - Write three riddles for every place and every age, so "New wording" always has something new to show.
   - Add a box where I can type my own hiding place, like "Grandad's chair". For those, use a simple rhyme that names the place for little ones, a jumbled-letters puzzle for ages 7 to 10, and the place spelled backwards for older hunters. Put "the" in front when it's needed, but not for things like "under the stairs" or "Gran's chair".
   - A "New wording for all" button.
   - Check that every riddle rhymes, never says the answer's name and suits the age. Never send anyone to hide a card inside the oven or the bin.
   
   Send me the complete updated file.

6. Keep it private, and make it work on a phone

   Nothing should be stored unless you ask. A tick box lets you keep this year's hunt for next time, on your own device only.

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   Please finish it off:
   - By default, save nothing at all. Add a note saying "Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere."
   - Add a tick box, "Remember my hunt on this device". Only when it's ticked, save the theme, the age, the places, their order and any clues I've changed, in localStorage. Unticking it deletes what was saved.
   - Make it work on a phone: the settings first, then the trail, then the preview, with nothing scrolling sideways and buttons big enough to tap.
   - Show a gentle message if a clue is too long to fit on its card, and stop at 24 clues.
   
   Send me the complete updated file.

Quick fixes

Twist it into something else

A chain of clues and some printable cards can become lots of other games. Change the first prompt to make:

Your house, your clues, no account

Most scavenger hunt generators online are AI chat tools that want you to sign up, and they hand you a list of riddles but leave you to work out the chain and the printing. Packs of clue cards in the shops never match the places in your home. Yours is one small file that knows your hiding places, keeps track of which card goes where, prints cards that fit the paper and works without the internet. Change a riddle to mention the dog or Grandad's chair, and use it again every Christmas, birthday and rainy half-term.

What to build next