If you’re looking for a great source of family fun, look no further than a scavenger hunt. When the weather is nice and there’s not a cloud in the sky, there’s nothing better than being outside. A family scavenger hunt is a great way to pass the time. It doesn’t matter if you’re on vacation or you’re hanging out at home, the possibilities are endless.

If you’re trying to plan a family scavenger hunt, you can plan something simple, like trying to find items in nature, or you can get really creative and plan a family scavenger hunt in your town. If you’re trying to do that, here are some ways you can pull it off:

Provide Clues

One of the easiest ways to ramp up the family fun during a hunt, is to provide clues that family members can use to find items on the list. You’ll want to provide clues to common local places that you and your family visit regularly, such as convenience stories — of which there are more than 150,000 in the United States — or your local movie theater, or a favorite family eatery. By selecting places that are well known, you can get really creative with the clues, making them creative enough and challenging enough to take some thinking.

Do they love history and pop culture? If they do, your clues can take them to local historical sites. Do they like straightforward clues? If they do, you can give some clues that have basic, straightforward answers. Do they like puzzles? If they do, you can make some of the clues a little more challenging.

Set Some Boundaries

If you’re planning a scavenger hunt, one of the most important things you need to do is set some distance parameters. According to 2009 data from AHSUS, approximately 11% of residential communities are secured or gated communities, which means you need to create some boundaries, whether you live in a gated community or not.

As you look to create some boundaries, you need to keep several things in mind: First, you need to make sure that the family members participating are able to get to the places where the items are. Ideally, that means that the parameters you create take the hunt on a walkable route, with a definitive start and end location. You also need to consider how much time your family will need to spend covering the distance laid out for the hunt.

All About Timing

When you plan family fun like a scavenger hunt, you want things to go smoothly. Part of that includes picking the right time of day to hold it. Odds are, no member of your family wants to start a hunt at the crack of dawn and you also want to keep the weather in mind. If you’re leaving clues at local places, you need to check and see what time those businesses are open and plan accordingly.

If part of the hunt involves driving, make sure your family can do so carefully. Weather is estimated to be a factor in about 21% of all United States motor vehicle crashes, so you don’t want your family trying to complete a scavenger hunt in the pouring rain.

Make It Fun

The entire point of family fun, like a scavenger hunt, is exactly that: you want everyone involved to have fun. You want to create something memorable that everyone will enjoy. An air of competitiveness is fine, but you want to make it so competitive that some of your family loses interest and you don’t want to make the clues so difficult that no one can solve them.

So let your creative juices flow, involve local businesses and come up with something really fun and creative. It may just be the most fun you and your family ever have.