overview

Instead of merely giving a gift to a recipient, you send them on a search for their gift. To include as much excitement as possible, we send the recipient to a location where they will find information directing them to yet another location with more information; these steps continue until they finally reach the gift location.

The clearest way to explain how this treasure hunt works is to provide an example: You could begin by simply giving a card that instructs them that a gift is waiting at the end of nine steps or stages. In the card you explain that the first step is to find a note attached beneath a table in the house. After searching beneath all the tables in the house, they discover a note that instructs them to find the northernmost tree in a nearby park -- there they will find the next instruction tied to one of the branches etc. The process continues until they reach the final instruction which tells them where they can find the gift which needs to be hidden, but it can remain unwrapped if you prefer. Using the ideas below, this process can be extended indefinitely either by incorporating more steps, by increasing the geographic distance between locations, or by increasing the difficulty of solving some clue.