Earlier this year, Traipse Founder Darren Smith, inspired by annual treasure hunts in his hometown, came up with the idea of doing a grand Treasure Hunt for Traipse in Staunton, Virginia, our home base. We joined forces with Staunton’s community radio station WQSV-106.3 to organize a 6-week long Treasure Hunt. We hid the treasure (just a note in a weather-proof box, really) somewhere on public land in Augusta County. Clues were given out over the radio, within the Traipse App and over social media channels. The prize itself was over $1000 in value!
Traipse's inboxes were inundated with messages telling us how much they enjoyed the pub crawl or one of the other tours or how they struggled to solve a particular cipher. We knew people were out there desperately looking for it. But at the same time, we thought perhaps we hid it so well, no one would ever find it! The last week of the hunt had us scrambling, upping the number of clues every day, waiting for that beep that would tell us someone had found the treasure!
And, they did! Matt and Deena Warner and their kids, Owen and Thomas, along with Deena's parents, Jim and Kathy Lineberger found the treasure. This amazing three-generation team worked together to figure out the clues, following all our channels and Traipsing all over town! Matt chronicled their entire adventure in his blog post: Letterboxing from Hell.
Traipse WQSV Treasure Hunt 2017 was such an refreshing success, the entire Traipse team is keen to make this an annual thing, not just in Staunton, but all Traipse locations, current and upcoming! In the meantime, we suggest you take your brain for a walk - solve challenges within the Traipse App and unlock more of your city!
P.S. Austin wrote a separate blog post about putting the puzzles together for the Treasure Hunt. Read on.