Create your own Amazing Race to add fun and mystery to any trip

ROUTE INFORMATION: Welcome to The Amazing Race. Go to the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo by car. Once you get there and find their sign, and you will receive your next clue.

My 8-year old son Alex has recently become obsessed with The Amazing Race TV Show. He is my geography whiz – knows all the countries and their flags and is working on his knowledge of capitals. He reads geography books, plays geography games and knows a ton of world landmarks. A few weeks ago, we were looking for an alternative to watching Despicable Me 3 for the 10^th time, so we turned on the first season of The Amazing Race (TAR). Little did we know what we were getting in to.

Truth be told, my husband Nick and I are AVID TAR fans. Once upon a time, we even sent in an audition tape to try out – how we were not chosen is still a mystery! When we lived in China we were able to watch TAR-US and TAR-Asia  – those were good times.

Alex even started reading a book, My Ox is Broken, written by a former competitor and taking notes in it as he watched the early seasons.

Anyway, I decided to have some fun with Alex during a “roam close to home” trip this past weekend. We had to pick up my older son, Nate, from summer camp in Northern Indiana (2.5 hours away) early Saturday morning. I’ve always wanted to go to both the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo and Nappanee, IN (Famous for Amish Acres and the surrounding Amish community), which were not far from his camp site. So, we (me, my dad and Alex) left early Friday to hit both attractions, spent the night in Warsaw and then picked up Nate.

To surprise Alex, I made up an Amazing Race game for us based on our day’s itinerary. In fact, I created these clues in about five minutes:

DETOUR: At the Fort Wayne Zoo, you must look for these four animals:

• Giraffe; feed giraffe lettuce leaves
• Zebra
• Tiger
• Sea Lion

After you find these animals and finish touring the zoo, you will get your next clue.

ROUTE INFO: Now go by car to Nappanee, Indiana, approximately 50 miles away. Once you arrive at Amish Acres, you will receive your next instructions.

 ROAD BLOCK: Go into Amish Acres’ restaurant and have lunch. After you eat some pie, you will receive your next clue.

ROUTE INFO: Make your way to the Warsaw, Indiana Hampton Inn for the PIT STOP.

He was so excited to open his clues and perform his Detour and Road Block (simple little activities to accomplish while racing) before hitting the Pit Stop. He even narrated what place we were in and which teams were ahead and behind us throughout the day.

As I mentioned, I wrote these clues pretty quickly; however, you could spend a lot more time working on it. Plan things all over your city (even in your backyard), or while on a vacation. Alex had a BLAST! I found that it kept him engaged in what we were doing, and also kept him moving along (sometimes we struggle with laggy feet). It also helped him practice his reading skills! It was such a fun way to add a little mystery and excitement to his day, and my dad and I loved seeing how enthusiastic he was about getting to the next location. Even people at the zoo were intrigued as to what we were doing and thought it was a unique and fun idea.

In the future, I plan on incorporating this into more local sightseeing trips, visits to places we go to often like our children’s museum and nature park as well as our bigger vacations.

We might even compete parents vs. the kids or kid/parent vs. kid/parent. In fact, there is a fun series of events called The Great Amazing Race that’s geared toward kids and travels to cities all over the U.S. We did it one year and it was really fun!

Mix things up on your next trip and create your own Amazing Race!