Imagine participating in a mini Amazing Race while on vacation to a new city (or even as a tourist in your hometown), sparking new experiences and learning opportunities you?ve never before had on vacation. That’s what the creators of UrbanQuest accomplished with their unique product that puts away the iPods and Nintendos and brings friends and family together to engage, learn and have a whole lot of fun. Through instructions, puzzles and a set of clues, families explore a section of the city, finding hidden gems along the way, before discovering a mystery restaurant at the end of the race they?ve chosen in advance based only on cuisine and price point.
Here are some facts about UrbanQuest:
- Designed after the Amazing Race, but doesn?t have to be a race if you want to take your time.
- Available in 35 North American cities (US and Canada), with more coming soon
- Takes about 2 hours to complete, with 1 to 3 miles of walking (realistic for kids)
- Perfect for family vacations, business trips, long-time locals looking for hidden finds at home, even an adventurous date.
- Set up a competitive race with friends
- Corporate and team building quests available
- Quests
can be done independently, or make it more interesting with your smart
phone and interact with the UrbanQuest website to beat the clock - All UrbanQuests are available at www.UrbanQuest.com
- UrbanQuest.com features ongoing puzzles, games and badges to unlock
- Coming soon ? Mobile App
Husband and I made a date out of
it and went on an Urban Quest here in Orlando. We brought along our
problem solving skills and our love for all things
competitive/puzzles/games and went about to have a good time together.
Here some photos of our quest that all took place in the area of Loch Haven Park.
Using the clues you find the answers to questions. My husband is far too good at things like this and was super quick at finding the answers. When you are all done you use the answers to put into a key to get a phrase that you put into the website that directs to your food destination.
For the full-on experience, you can sign up on the website once you get your
quest. From there you can log in and set up your quest as a race against the
clock. It works like this, you log on and choose what kind of restaurant you’d
like to eat at based simply on the cuisine offerings and the general cost (low
cost is $, high cost is $$$$). You let the site know what time you’ll start
your quest. The website will then make your reservation at your mystery
restaurant within a couple of hours of the time you start the quest, giving you
only that long to complete the quest. As you go through the Quest, you’ll see
on your PDF there are places to fill in the answers to clues. Once you’ve found
all the clues, you use the answer key to determine the final code. Pull out
your smartphone, get onto the UrbanQuest website and log in. Type in your final
code and it will reveal the name and address of your restaurant (which isn’t
far from your finishing point).
I love the idea of getting together with friends and doing these Urban Quests. The one here in Orlando is short (took us around 40 minutes) and can easily be done with children. I am especially excited to see when their app comes out because I love the idea of being able to do this on my phone. This would be great for visiting other cities on vacation as well because it can give you a fun activity to do with a mystery restaurant at the end!
Connect:
You can connect with Urban Quest on Facebook, and/or @UrbanQuestcom on Twitter!
Buy It!
You can purchase a quest for $19.99.
I received a sample product for this review. All opinions are my own and/or my family’s, take it or leave it. Click here to view my whole disclosure policy.
