​​Several companies offer iPhone-based scavenger hunts now. We’ve tried a few hunts and found two companies that do a good job, both with similar approaches. These hunts last for an hour or two, cover a mile or two, and have roughly twenty clues. Each clue involves a question and you have three shots at a correct answer. Then you get directions to your next clue.
 
The scoring is based on a combination of correct answers and travel time between clues. They rank you against others who recently took the challenge, allowing you to compete virtually. However, you could also break into teams if there were enough of you and you wanted personal as well as virtual competition.

​Portsmouth was an old haunt for some of us, but less so for me, and I learned about more than just the bustling waterfront.

​An additional benefit is that you can pause the game after each challenge. When our hunger was getting the best of us in Salem, we paused the game, had a wonderful lunch at a local restaurant, then resumed playing. The same was true to check out a wonderful little store on Portsmouth’s main strip. This avoids the game from becoming a chore, letting you play at your own pace.
 
Not all cities have these scavenger hunts; these companies have found cities with history, variety, and a fairly self-contained route. However, all of the New England states have at least one place to offer. Some have mini-hunts as well, if you’re looking for a place or hunt that’s more abridged. Since these are national companies, it can be fun for vacations further afield, too: we played during a vacation in Nashville, which really allowed us to learn about an unfamiliar place.

These have also helped engage our whole family. With two teen-aged girls, “family friendly” is sometimes too young of a focus for them. They also have a high bar for entertainment. This lets them take a tour without being bored by the tour guide, creates a game-like approach, and they can lead the charge, with their iPhones being assets, since some clues are best googled. It's also an easy activity for a friend to join.
 
So, the next time you’re thinking about visiting a new city or an old haunt, or looking for something fun to do with friends or family, consider a scavenger hunt. It could just be the highlight of your trip!

​Franconia Notch is a beautiful, rugged part of New Hampshire. The notch itself is lined with views and natural attractions, and Cannon Mountain and its ski trails loom large on the north end of it. But if visitors are willing to venture down some back roads, there’s more to be found. Franconia Notch Stables is one such place that, while off the beaten path, offers a chance to explore the area and enjoy the scenery in a different way.
 
Franconia Notch Stables, part of the Franconia Inn, is behind Cannon Mountain. It’s only a few minutes’ drive off of the highway. But it becomes quickly apparent that you’re in a more remote area. The Franconia Inn and adjacent stables are nestled in a little valley, surrounded by woods, mountains, and adjacent to a grass airfield. Everything has a more casual feel than the pleasant but more business-like places we sometimes run across in more hectic locales. This set things off on the right foot, as we prepared for our ride.
 
We’d lined up an hour-long trail ride at Franconia Notch Stables and were joining four other people. While we observed all of the horses to be well trained, each is still unique with its own personality. Accordingly, horses were matched with riders based on personalities, skills, and experience. However, prior riding experience isn’t necessary, and some riders had never been in the saddle. Also, these rides only proceed at a walking pace; no galloping to worry about for the newbie! ​

​Sometimes you have those days that are pretty wide open: no long list of chores, no big plans, maybe you’re on vacation with a light itinerary for the day. We found ourselves with such a day recently when we were on vacation, and weren’t sure how to spend it. So, just like my friends and I would do as kids, we invented a game, complete with rules and everything.
 
The rules were simple: do whatever we wanted, but find letters that the activities correspond to. The goal was to do stuff that touched on every letter of the alphabet. Intimidating? Nope. This didn’t require doing 26 different things, just doing stuff that involved words starting with all those letters. That meant one activity could score more than one letter. Ready, set, go!

​This had the potential to be a stressful challenge that could leave us feeling over-programmed. But we started with a couple of things we definitely wanted to do, a possibility or two, and an assumption we’d find other stuff along the way. We opened up a new Note on my iPhone and marked down letters and words as we went along. If things were duplicates, we didn’t worry in the moment. We figured we’d sort stuff out later in the day and see what was left to tackle.

We wound up having a blast. It was a way to frame our day. It also led us to observe things we might have otherwise missed. And it also provided its own unique laughs. For example, when we went to visit a historical society and they didn’t show up to open their building, we declared we’d been “A… abandoned!” (Sigh.) 

​Conversely, when we went to a local brewery to have lunch and assess what we’d accomplished and what we had left to do, we proudly realized we could declare a trifecta, as we were drinking an “I-P-A”. We spontaneously hit a flea market, and I wound up with a $2 book by one of my favorite authors, eventually needing his N for Novel. And when we thought we wouldn’t come up with an X word, we thought about using Q for Quit. However, we’d learned earlier from a tour guide about the sappy pine trees that were pervasive in our area, and discovered that Xylem is like a tree’s artery, moving the sap through the tree. That became the final letter that gave us the win.

​While we played this on a vacation day, and could start the day off before dawn watching a sunrise at the beach, it can be done anywhere. If your summer trips are over and you’re out of ideas for the kids while awaiting the start of the new school year, you can go at it the same way. If you’re a couple staying home for the weekend, it might be a way to discover some new things in your neck of the woods. Our longest activities were about an hour, from our sunrise at the ocean to a tour at an historical society (not the one that didn’t open on time). By contrast, the shortest was about five minutes as we snagged some seltzer water at the Eastham Superette.
 
It doesn’t really matter if you finish, just as long as you have fun in the attempt. Here are our final results, to give you an idea of how random the letters were. Start to finish, we were gone for about nine hours, making it a full day but still fine.

Sometimes, the joy of a vacation is letting go of work pressures, ignoring the lawn that needs mowing, and taking a timeout from your normal life. That certainly has its place, as you can de-stress, recharge, and return to your normal life with more enthusiasm. Sometimes, however, you can’t take that vacation. Maybe it’s the cost of a weekend away (“$300 per night for a double bed with no wifi? Aargh!”). Or maybe it’s a commitment that takes up part of the weekend (“who thought a Friday night game for a preteen was a good idea?!?!”). The bottom line is that sometimes you’re stuck locally but still with some free time and spending money available.
 
We recently challenged ourselves to fill an entire day without leaving the boundaries of our town. OK, granted, we have a place on Cape Cod, so this wasn’t a terribly intimidating challenge. But we constricted it further to just our quieter part of town, to see what we’d make of it, and had a self-imposed rule of focusing on the fun: no chores allowed while at home.

For me, the day started off at dawn, finding a scenic spot to watch the sun come up. It had this mindfulness aspect to it in which I was really plugged in to the sights, sounds, and smells around me. Again, I fully acknowledge that it’s not hard to be present watching the sun coming up over the ocean, so I’m not going to win any awards for perseverance on that one. But plenty of towns have mountains, bigger expanses of woods, farms, or even office parks perched on a hill that serve as lookout points to watch the sky transform from darkness to color before brightening enough as you then continue on with your day.
 
After returning to the house, the general game plan was put together over a second cup of coffee on the back deck. We threw some food in a cooler, tossed the beach chairs in the back of the truck, and headed off to the beach. Yeah, I know; not the most agonizing of decisions on a sunny, hot day. But so many towns have conservation areas, state forests, or some sort of green space if you want to have a picnic, go for a bike ride, or enjoy the outdoors in some way.

We spent a few hours on the beach reading, walking and searching for beach glass, watching boats motoring out of the nearby harbor, and relaxing. Then we packed up, returned home, and showered up. We’d considered a few options on the next part of the day, from browsing local small businesses to sampling craft beer from a brewer in town to looking into some of the town’s history. We settled on grabbing a drink and appetizer at some casually upscale local restaurants.

Both were friendly and engaging as they explained about making homemade bitters and the subtle perfection of directionally frozen ice.  We also learned about some interesting classes they planned to offer during the next off-season.

The second pit stop was at Encore Bistro and Bar. This restaurant and pub is situated next to the Cape Playhouse and Cape Cod Museum of Art. A performance had just ended so the place was packed and energetic. While the attentive bartenders hustled to deal with the crowd, we were reminded that the playhouse is an option we don’t take much advantage of, and we've found an entertaining-looking play we plan to see next month.
 
Our final stop was right around the corner, at Harvest Gallery Wine Bar. Aside of their top-notch cocktails and ever-rotating wine selection, it’s a fun chance to sample several wines instead of having to commit to a single glass.  They feature a wide array of musicians across genres. This might leave you singing along, as you blend in with others and pretend you’re pitch perfect. Or, you can get out on the dance floor to burn off the calories from the cheese plate or meals that are always spot-on.  Artwork adorns the walls and is all for sale or a potential conversation-starter.  Its friendly atmosphere staff promote conversations among strangers, such as learning about the experiences of another couple who relocated from Tennessee (tip from all of us surrounding them: never, ever relocate from the South to New England during the dead of winter). While we always enjoy this place, the pit-stop on this day reinforced to us that it stays fresh and interesting.
 
When the night was over, it was only a mile back to our house. We finished with more ideas for future weekends than we started with. Some of the more interesting moments weren’t the parts that were planned; they were the conversations that occurred spontaneously with the people around us, as a result of enjoying the moment instead of wishing we were doing something more exciting.

When thinking about our small town in Central Mass where we spend the majority of our time instead of a beach community in the summer, it still offers opportunities: small batch coffee in an historic building with occasional wine tastings we've never been to; a nearby farm with an array of fruit for picking; conservation trails we've never explored; and a farm stand that recently underwent a renovation and serves up local ice cream along with products from a number of local small businesses.

re-look at what was in front of us. Ultimately, it highlighted that we’re really only limited by our imagination.
 
So, now the challenge is yours: what can you (re)discover in your own surroundings?