Free New York City Scavenger Hunt: For Tourists and Locals
New York City has so many sights to see, and this free scavenger hunt will lead you to all the best places, local haunts, and have you keeping an eye out for what makes New York City unique! Below, is our free scavenger hunt, where you can click or tap each item to mark it as complete. And for the planners out there, you can drag and drop rows to change the order in case you want to map out everything in advance.
For a print-and-play instead, click the picture below and you can download and print that.
Read further for more information on how to play or check out our hard-mode New York scavenger hunt if you prefer that over the below checklist-style option.
Scavenger Hunt Checklist for New York City
Item | Points |
---|---|
Statue of Liberty | 2 |
Times Square | 2 |
Empire State Building | 2 |
Central Park | 2 |
Brooklyn Bridge | 3 |
One World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial | 3 |
Broadway street sign | 3 |
The Metropolitan Museum of Art | 3 |
Top of the Rock Observation Deck | 5 |
The High Line elevated park | 4 |
Grand Central Terminal | 2 |
The Charging Bull statue | 4 |
The Vessel at Hudson Yards | 3 |
The New York Public Library | 4 |
The Flatiron Building | 4 |
Fifth Avenue street sign | 2 |
Radio City Music Hall | 4 |
St. Patrick’s Cathedral | 3 |
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) | 2 |
The Guggenheim Museum | 3 |
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden | 2 |
The New York Botanical Garden | 2 |
Coney Island boardwalk | 4 |
The Chrysler Building | 3 |
The United Nations Headquarters | 3 |
The Bronx Zoo | 4 |
The Apollo Theater in Harlem | 5 |
The American Museum of Natural History | 4 |
Bryant Park | 3 |
Person with New York Knicks gear on | 2 |
Person with New York Giants gear on | 2 |
Person with New York Jets gear on | 2 |
Person with New York Yankees gear on | 2 |
Person with New York Mets gear on | 2 |
How to Play
For this New York City scavenger hunt, we’ve come up with a list of things to see in the city. Some of them are popular tourist attractions while others are more local secrets. For each item, you (or your team) will need to take a picture that shows both you and the listed item. For each photo you take, you’ll get the corresponding amount of points listed to the side of that item.
At the end of the allotted time for the scavenger hunt, you can see what level of rank you’ve earned and whichever team has the most points wins! You’ll be allowed to go to City Hall and ask for a key to the city. (We haven’t actually made any arrangements, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, right?)
Additional considerations for how you play:
- We recommend three hours for the scavenger hunt just to have a limit on the time you’re focused on this activity, but that’s up to you.
- If you’re traveling as part of a group and don’t want to split up, we’d recommend treating this as a game of I-Spy and awarding points to whoever in the group spots the item first or takes the first photo.
- It’s up to you how tough you want to make it with respect to awarding points just for seeing something, or if you have to go inside, or taking it further and requiring even more depending on the location.
Score and Rankings
0-10: Did you even leave your hotel?
11-20: Business trip traveler
21-30: Frequent business trip traveler
31-40: Tourist
41-50: Lives in the next city over
51-60: Over-caffeinated tourist
61-70: Recent transplant
71-80: Local
81-90: Actually grew up here and has always lived here
91-100: Mayor
Think you’re the best ever? Let us know how you did in the comments (and how long it took you) and sign up for our newsletter to be alerted of other scavenger hunts, our challenges designed for only the top finishers, and more.