Free Santa Cruz Scavenger Hunt: For Tourists and Locals

Santa Cruz 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 Santa Cruz 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.

Read further for more information on how to play as well as additional scavenger hunt options we offer.

Scavenger Hunt Checklist for Santa Cruz

ItemPoints
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk3
Natural Bridges State Beach4
Santa Cruz Wharf5
West Cliff Drive1
Mystery Spot3
Santa Cruz Surfing Museum4
Capitola Village2
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park3
Santa Cruz Wharf4
UC Santa Cruz Campus2
Pleasure Point3
Pacific Avenue4
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk5
Natural Bridges State Beach3
Lighthouse Field State Beach2
Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf5
Seymour Marine Discovery Center4
Surfing at Steamer Lane3
Wilder Ranch State Park2
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk4
Natural Bridges State Beach2
Santa Cruz Wharf5
West Cliff Drive3
Mystery Spot4
Santa Cruz Surfing Museum2
Capitola Village1
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park3
Santa Cruz Wharf5
UC Santa Cruz Campus3
Pleasure Point2
Pacific Avenue4

How to Play

For this Santa Cruz 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

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