A $5,000 cash prize lies somewhere in Charleston for one lucky (and well-traveled) treasure hunter to find and claim.
The bounty isn’t buried underground like hidden treasures of yore, however. While you will need a map to determine its whereabouts, your computer or iPhone will be a handier tool than a shovel or pick-ax to locate it.
Katie Cross of Charleston, who is a teacher at Overbrook Elementary School, and her friend, Andrea Owens, a former teacher and current stay-at-home mom of Kanawha City, came up with the Charleston Treasure Hunt concept about six months ago.
Katie’s husband, Josh Cross, explained how the prize can be acquired and how the treasure hunt originated.
“Maps for the Charleston Treasure Hunt will go on sale Friday, Oct. 27,” Josh explained. They will be available to buy through midnight Nov. 10. “On the morning of Nov. 11, all registered participants will receive an email with a map and their unique hunter’s code.”
Costing $20 each, the maps are “kind of similar to those in escape rooms people are getting into now. It contains some pretty difficult puzzles you have to solve,” he said. “The map is in several sections. You have to solve one puzzle to get to the next puzzle. They’re related to physical areas around Charleston and require some interaction with the city and its environment to solve clues and get from Point A to Point B. Once a hunter solves all five of the sections, they will have discovered a secret email address. When you send us an email when you know you solved the puzzle, it’ll match the hunter code you get when you buy a map. When you send us an email with the code, we’ll award you $5,000.”
The women and their husbands have invested their own funds into the first-time Charleston Treasure Hunt, Josh said.
“It’s just a fun idea we had,” he said. “We talked about it and were sure, at first, other people had done it before. But the more we researched it, we found it’s a pretty unique idea. With the popularity of these escape rooms, which are something people really like now, and board games and trivia contests, we felt it was a good idea and that a lot of like-minded people would like it. We thought of the success of Pokémon Go and how many people were involved in that. We thought it was a good way for people to get out and be active and find out more about the city.
“But the main inspiration for creating the treasure hunt was that we felt like this is something we would enjoy doing. We grew up watching great movies like the ‘Indiana Jones’ films and ‘The Goonies,’ and we believe the kid in all of us still dreams of finding hidden treasure.
“Initially, we toyed with keeping it pretty anonymous; we were afraid people who know us in the community might try to get clues from us. If someone who knew us won the treasure, there might be some skepticism that they had an inside track to solving it. We wanted to keep it as low-key as possible,” he said.
To keep the playing field fair, he said, registered treasure hunters (who must be 18 or older to take part) will all be emailed their maps simultaneously on Nov. 11.
Josh shared a few pointers that could aid treasure-seekers in their $5K quest.
“Each [map] section will contain numerous clues, some of them easy, some of them hard, some of them absolutely cryptic,” he said. “We recommend, to be successful, to work in teams or with a partner. The clues are pretty difficult. If no one has solved the puzzles after a few weeks, we’ll send clues to make it easier.
“There’s nothing to be tampered with — you don’t have to dig anything. [The prize] won’t physically be anywhere on public property; I talked to the city about it and they’re OK with the idea.”
While there is no tangible treasure chest or token to discover, he explained, the hunt involves tracking down a group of words and solving the puzzle by connecting them correctly first among contestants.
“The number-one tool I recommend is having a computer connected to the Internet, or a smart phone to do a lot of the work.”
The website www.charlestonhunt.com contains the full set of rules and a link to purchase a Charleston Treasure Hunt map. Information is also available on the Charleston Treasure Hunt Facebook page.
The bounty isn’t buried underground like hidden treasures of yore, however. While you will need a map to determine its whereabouts, your computer or iPhone will be a handier tool than a shovel or pick-ax to locate it.
Katie Cross of Charleston, who is a teacher at Overbrook Elementary School, and her friend, Andrea Owens, a former teacher and current stay-at-home mom of Kanawha City, came up with the Charleston Treasure Hunt concept about six months ago.
Katie’s husband, Josh Cross, explained how the prize can be acquired and how the treasure hunt originated.
“Maps for the Charleston Treasure Hunt will go on sale Friday, Oct. 27,” Josh explained. They will be available to buy through midnight Nov. 10. “On the morning of Nov. 11, all registered participants will receive an email with a map and their unique hunter’s code.”
Costing $20 each, the maps are “kind of similar to those in escape rooms people are getting into now. It contains some pretty difficult puzzles you have to solve,” he said. “The map is in several sections. You have to solve one puzzle to get to the next puzzle. They’re related to physical areas around Charleston and require some interaction with the city and its environment to solve clues and get from Point A to Point B. Once a hunter solves all five of the sections, they will have discovered a secret email address. When you send us an email when you know you solved the puzzle, it’ll match the hunter code you get when you buy a map. When you send us an email with the code, we’ll award you $5,000.”
The women and their husbands have invested their own funds into the first-time Charleston Treasure Hunt, Josh said.
“It’s just a fun idea we had,” he said. “We talked about it and were sure, at first, other people had done it before. But the more we researched it, we found it’s a pretty unique idea. With the popularity of these escape rooms, which are something people really like now, and board games and trivia contests, we felt it was a good idea and that a lot of like-minded people would like it. We thought of the success of Pokémon Go and how many people were involved in that. We thought it was a good way for people to get out and be active and find out more about the city.
“But the main inspiration for creating the treasure hunt was that we felt like this is something we would enjoy doing. We grew up watching great movies like the ‘Indiana Jones’ films and ‘The Goonies,’ and we believe the kid in all of us still dreams of finding hidden treasure.
“Initially, we toyed with keeping it pretty anonymous; we were afraid people who know us in the community might try to get clues from us. If someone who knew us won the treasure, there might be some skepticism that they had an inside track to solving it. We wanted to keep it as low-key as possible,” he said.
To keep the playing field fair, he said, registered treasure hunters (who must be 18 or older to take part) will all be emailed their maps simultaneously on Nov. 11.
Josh shared a few pointers that could aid treasure-seekers in their $5K quest.
“Each [map] section will contain numerous clues, some of them easy, some of them hard, some of them absolutely cryptic,” he said. “We recommend, to be successful, to work in teams or with a partner. The clues are pretty difficult. If no one has solved the puzzles after a few weeks, we’ll send clues to make it easier.
“There’s nothing to be tampered with — you don’t have to dig anything. [The prize] won’t physically be anywhere on public property; I talked to the city about it and they’re OK with the idea.”
While there is no tangible treasure chest or token to discover, he explained, the hunt involves tracking down a group of words and solving the puzzle by connecting them correctly first among contestants.
“The number-one tool I recommend is having a computer connected to the Internet, or a smart phone to do a lot of the work.”
The website www.charlestonhunt.com contains the full set of rules and a link to purchase a Charleston Treasure Hunt map. Information is also available on the Charleston Treasure Hunt Facebook page.
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