Easter Scavenger Hunt: GPS Egg Hunt Ideas & Tasks

An egg hunt is already a search game, so adding a GPS route mainly gives it structure: the children know where to go, what to do there and when it ends. You need a phone with the app, eggs (plastic, wooden, hard-boiled or chocolate), a spoon, some paper and a basket for the finish. Choose an area you know well: your garden, the street plus a neighbour's garden, or a corner of the park. Hide the eggs no more than an hour before the start, because of birds, dogs and sun. Keep the last stop for the basket so the hunt has a clear finish everyone reaches together.

At a glance

At a glance
Group size	2-10 children
Duration	30-90 minutes
Age	4-12 years
Where	garden, street or park
Preparation	30-45 minutes

Tasks you can use right away

Tasks you can use right away
No.	Task	How it works
1	Egg and spoon course	Each player carries a hard-boiled egg on a spoon from the stop to a tree or fence and back. Drop it and you start again; the group enters the total number of drops as the code for the next stop.
2	Bunny hop count	Players hop like a rabbit from the current stop to the next one, counting their hops. The person who hid the eggs has already counted the distance, and the number of hops (give a range of 10) unlocks the next task.
3	Colour memory	Lay five eggs of different colours in a row at the stop and let the children look for ten seconds. Cover them with a tea towel and ask them to enter the colour sequence in the app.
4	Find something orange	The group has three minutes to photograph as many orange things in the area as possible: a flower, a traffic cone, a front door. Three photos or more unlocks the location of the next stop.
5	Build a nest	Using only twigs, grass and leaves found within sight, the group builds a nest that can hold one egg without it rolling out. Take a photo of the egg sitting in the nest to complete the stop.
6	Feel the bag	Put an egg, a carrot, a feather and a spoon in a cloth bag and let each child feel one object without looking. They whisper their guess to the adult; once all four are named correctly the code appears.
7	Egg roll	Everyone rolls a hard-boiled egg down a small slope or along a path towards a marked spot, such as a jacket on the ground. The distance from the closest egg to the marker in steps is the code.
8	The basket	At every stop the children find one letter on a hidden egg; together the letters spell a word like GARDEN or SHED. The word is the final code and tells them where the basket is waiting.

Turn this into your own hunt

Tips for the day

Hide plastic, wooden or hard-boiled eggs along the route and hand out the chocolate at the basket; chocolate in a sunny garden is soft within half an hour.

GPS is off by 5 to 15 metres in a garden or between houses, so set the trigger radius for each stop generously and put the egg somewhere the children can see once they are close.

Write a list of every hiding spot and count the eggs before and after; one forgotten egg turns up in May.

Walk the route once yourself with the phone the day before to check that every stop triggers and that no stop is on a neighbour's driveway.

For mixed ages, let the youngest child of each group hold the phone and the oldest read the task; it slows the fast ones down and gives the small ones a job.

Frequently asked questions

Give each age group its own egg colour and let the app show each group only its own stops. Younger children get stops close together with eggs at knee height, older children get stops further apart with eggs hidden higher or under something.

Move the stops indoors: hallway, kitchen, under the stairs, the shed. GPS is unreliable inside, so switch those stops to a code the children have to find, for example a number written on a sticky note under a chair.

No, one phone per group is enough. With children under 8 an adult usually holds the phone and reads the tasks aloud; children from about 9 can navigate on their own within a set area.

Count on 4 to 6 finds per child if you hide eggs at every stop, or 1 to 2 per stop plus a shared basket at the end. Write down where you hid everything, because after an hour you will not remember.

For children aged 4 to 6, aim for 30 to 45 minutes with 5 or 6 stops. Children aged 7 to 12 can handle 60 to 90 minutes and 8 to 10 stops, especially if a few stops involve running or building.

Yes, then skip the group tasks and keep the memory game, egg-and-spoon course and nest building. Two children can also play as one team and split the work: one navigates, the other searches.