Exploring Your City with Let’s Roam

Let’s Roam is a unique scavenger hunt app where players purchase tickets for scavenger hunts in various cities. These scavenger hunts are completed in an app which guides you through the full process. When Meryl (FundaFunda’s founder) and I (Natalie, teacher’s assistant in FundaFunda classes and affiliate manager) found a hunt for our city, we decided to try it one afternoon! This blog post tells about our experience with the app and  our tips to start exploring your city with Let’s Roam!

**Some links in this post may be affiliate links. You don’t pay any extra if you choose to purchase from them, but we make a small commission off of the sale**

Choosing and Customizing Your Scavenger Hunt

Meryl and I decided on this scavenger hunt for Knoxville, but there were a couple of other options in the city as well. The hunt that we did had a focus on history. Others focused on art, entertainment, sports, etc. You can find an option that fits you family’s interests! Let’s roam is available in hundreds of cities both in and out of the U.S.A., so you’re likely to find one near where you live. Once we purchased our tickets, we were ready to go! (Note: each person with a device will need a ticket to participate. If you have two parents and two children with separate devices, you will need four tickets.)

The app clearly told us what location to start at and gave us a few customization options. We could choose whether we wanted to work together or compete against each other (we worked together!), say whether we were local or visiting, and decide if we wanted to interact with people outside of our group for photos and questions. These options gave us some control of our game experience, which we both enjoyed. After that, the fun began! The app instructed us to take a selfie to commemorate the start of our hunt. 

Exploring Your City

Lets Roam gave us our first question, and we looked around our starting location to find the answer. After answering the question, we received the next location we would walk to. The map in the Lets Roam app showed our location as well as a marker and name the next location. There was also an option to view photos of the spot to help guide you. This was great practice using maps and navigation skills and would be a fun challenge for older kids. Meryl took the lead navigating for us!

Our hunt took us to 11 different locations in downtown Knoxville. Each location had a couple of questions to answer using info at the site. The questions were timed, but we didn’t feel rushed and were able to complete them in the given time. The app also provided additional historical facts about the location and people who were involved with it. Despite living in Knoxville my entire life, much of this information was new to me! It was fascinating to learn all of the unique stories and history about locations that I see so frequently. Once you finish the questions for a location, the app waits for you to say you’re ready to move on to the next clue. This allows you to explore as much as you like at each spot without worrying about time limits. 

Fun Challenges

Lets Roam also had a variety of challenges that required us to take photos and videos of things we saw. Some were specific to the locations in the hunt, such as the picture below of a sculpture we had to find in a park. However, there were also bonus challenges to complete while walking between locations. These challenges had us find a license plate from another state, video ourselves quoting Disney movies, take a picture pretending to play an instrument (also pictured below!), and much more!

Any pictures taken and submitted for points are reviewed by AI (artificial intelligence) software in the app to see if they meet criteria. We tested this and found that it was quite accurate at determining if pictures met requirements or not. On an occasion where it wasn’t correct, we were easily able to report an error for someone to review, and they fixed the issue and adjusted our score accordingly in around 15 minutes.

Ending the Hunt and Further Suggestions

After you’ve completed all the locations in your hunt, Let’s Roam gives you a breakdown of your game and your total score. It also shows how you compare to other people who have finished the same hunt. We finished in the top 29% of competitors for Knoxville, which wasn’t bad for our first time! The app also told us who answered the most questions correctly between the two of us, who completed more bonus challenges, and who answered the fastest. If your family is competitive, you’ll definitely enjoy comparing those stats! 

The hunt alone is very informative and educational, and there are ways you can expand on it for more educational value. For example, you could have your children pick a location you visited and do a brief report on it. Or, you could have them do some research and find a few locations in the city that weren’t included in the hunt. They can then come up with questions and make their own mini hunt! For younger children, you could guide them to make a simple scrapbook showing what you did that day. You can print out any fun photos you took and have them write short sentences about the places they saw. 

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed these suggestions for exploring your city with Let’s Roam. For more ideas related to education and travel, check out this post on Educational Road Trip Activities. If you have any other ideas for activities to go along with the hunts, leave them in the comments below! And if you do any scavenger hunts in your city, feel free to tag us on Instagram @fundafundaeducation so we can see your adventures!